We Live Not for Ourselves
by Attic Geek
Summary: My first stab at a Legomance. Calla, a young woman of Minas Tirith, has her heart unexpectedly stolen away, but what can an ordinary working girl do? Well, her darndest.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: The setting for this story is in Minas Tirith, just after the fall of Sauron and the crowning of Aragorn, but before the Hobbits go back to the Shire. Just so you know. I assume loads of parties and things are going on at this time—days of celebration, yadda yadda. Oh, and _italics_ denote thought. Also here is a blanket disclaimer for the entire story: Tolkien's are Tolkien's, mine are mine.

Calla stood in the open doorway to her small house, leaning against the frame. Her best friend, Shiriel, flitted about inside, chatting happily about the events of the day before, the crowning of the king and the revelation of his bride-to-be. A sense of well being flooded through Calla—she loved everything about this day. The early morning sun was pale and gold on the white walls of the city, slanting into her house through the doorway, and the streets were quiet, empty except for a small grey cat washing himself meticulously behind the ears. The basil growing in her windowboxes wafted a spicy perfume through the air, and she picked at a heel of bread left over from yesterday and watched absently as the little brown sparrows bickered over the crumbs. And then, she had a vision dancing behind her eyes, seen yesterday, memorized, preserved, cherished, which both made her heart leap and her stomach drop.

"Calla? Calla?" Calla turned around to see Shiriel smiling knowingly. "You actually haven't heard a thing I've said, have you?" Calla smiled and shrugged an apology, then, as Shiriel turned back to the toast she was making over a low fire, said,

"Just… preoccupied. Pleasantly." Shiriel abandoned her toast and faced her friend again, raising one eyebrow archly.

"Oh? With what? It's a man!"

"It is not a man!" Calla laughed, but she felt a blush creep across her cheeks.

"It _is_ a man!" cried Shiriel with delight. "Which one? Do I know him?"

"Shiriel, for once and for all, I am not preoccupied with a man." _Technically, that's completely true_.

"It is, I can tell. And if you don't do this the easy way I will still get it out of you. I will badger you to death. All right, let's see. Who could it be? I know you've said in the past that you don't care for soldiers, since they're not usually well-read enough to hold a conversation with you—though you _generously _make an exception for my Cadfael—so that knocks out about nine tenths of the population. And you also say that scholars are to dried-up and pedantic to engage you for very long, which more or less gets rid of the remaining tenth, which leaves us with the sliver of the population that fits in both camps, or else outside them altogether… Oh! Unless it's one of the Rohirrim! Let's see, can I picture you falling for one of the men of Rohan? Mm, I don't think that's your type, precisely, exciting, sure, but I would say you want something just a little more refined." Suddenly she gasped. "It's not Lord Faramir, is it? It must be! It _is_! Calla, I am absolutely certain I'm right, and you are in love with Lord Faramir."

"Shiriel, I have never even considered Lord Faramir, and you have burnt the toast."

"Are you certain it's not Lord Faramir?" asked Shiriel when she had pulled the toasting fork from the fire. "It was such a perfect theory."

"I am totally and completely positive it's not Lord Faramir."

"Pity," sighed Shiriel sending little eddies of smoke into the air from the charcoal-that-should-have-been-toast. Then her face lit up. "Ah-HA! But you do admit that it's _some_body!"

"I admit no such thing! Now drop it, and let's get down to work. There's another feast tonight, I want to be able to enjoy it without anything looming over me. We got nothing done yesterday, and if we don't catch up today we will fall way behind in our orders."

The two girls ran a small business together out of Calla's house. Calla was really, as she occasionally privately admitted to herself and as Shiriel proudly told anyone who would listen, one of the finest weavers in the whole of the city. The cloth she turned out was exquisite, and she personally supplied some very high-end seamstresses with their materiel. After the dresses and gowns were fitted and sewn and hemmed, they were sent back to the girls to be embroidered. Both of the girls did excellent embroidery, but since Calla spent most of her time weaving, this task fell primarily to Shiriel. All in all, the two friends made a tidy little sum out of everything, and to their great pleasure, had begun to establish themselves a quite respectable little business.

For the rest of the day, they were kept so busy that Shiriel almost completely forgot about her best friend's Mystery Man. By late afternoon, on top of the work they already had in progress, they had five new orders, three for fabric and two for embroidery, which, as this was their personal record for number of orders in one day, caused them to do a little hugging dance after Shiriel had curtsied the fifth customer out the door. Calla, luckily, kept seven or eight bolts of cloth on hand at all times, and had been able to fill two of her orders immediately, which meant she'd be able to help Shiriel with the extra embroidery work.

"It's because of all the festivities," said Calla, as, later in the evening, they made their way towards the sound of singing and the smell of spit-roasted mutton. "What lady who can afford it wouldn't want a new gown for the occasion? I expect that things will drop off again soon, but if we do well during this rush, we might really be able to make a name for ourselves, maybe one day get some business with the seamstress of someone really prestigious."

The evening passed happily away in good food, good wine, good dancing, and good company. Cadfael, a guard of the city who had been one of the men to brave the battle at the gates of Mordor, spent the evening with them, dancing mainly with Shiriel and once or twice with Calla. He had asked Shiriel to marry him the same hour that he had returned, haggard but triumphant, from that battle and since then had treated Calla like a sister. Calla had a high opinion of him, and was overjoyed for her friend who, when she had broken the news that they were, at last, engaged, had been so happy that she had scarcely been able to stammer out her meaning.

It was not until the girls walked home arm in arm that Shiriel again picked up her theme from that morning and began to pester Calla about her 'pleasant preoccupation'. Call, giving nothing away, laughingly parried every probing question that Shiriel could think of. When they reached Shiriel's door, Calla kissed her on the cheek and said,

"Go to bed, you nattering goose. I swear to you, in all truth, that no mortal Man in all the world has invaded my thoughts, much less my heart."

It was nearly dawn when Shiriel sat straight up in bed and announced breathlessly to the darkened room,

"By Elbereth, it's an Elf!"

A/N: All right. This, as the lable says, is my first stab at a Legomance, so of course, there's no mystery to you my many devoted (hey, let me decieve myself) readers. But there is for Shiriel. This isn't really going to fall into the category of 'Angst' or of 'Fluff' since they're'll be some very happy bits and some very sad bits, and maybe even some very adventurey (that's... not a word, is it?) bits. So, erm. I hope you like. If you've read, a review would just make my day. Next up, a longer chapter. I just want to see how this one was is received.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Right, I know I'm not allowed to respond to reviewers now, but I just wanted to say thanks to every one who did. So, yeah. Thank you. Onward.

"It's an Elf!" Calla fumbled the fresh loaf of bread and dropped it unceremoniously on the table. "Don't even _try_ to tell me it isn't, Calla, because I didn't grow up with you without learning one or two things and you said very pointedly last night that no _mortal man_ had captured your heart, and that's just the sort of thing I never used to pick up, but I've had years of practice now, and that's what you meant, isn't it?" Calla slowly finished slicing the bread before she turned and, her face stony, said,

"How do you know I didn't mean a Dwarf?"

"A—a D…?" stammered Shiriel. "A Dwarf? Oh, oh, Calla, I didn't think… I, um." Calla cracked a grin.

"My sweet, gullible child, don't be an idiot. It is," she sighed, "an Elf."

"It's an Elf!" squeaked Shiriel. "I didn't really think it was, but you _just said_ it's an Elf!"

"Just following our good King's example," Calla said, skewering a slice of bread on the toasting fork and holding it over the hot embers in the fireplace. Shiriel, who had not actually left the door since flinging it open and declaring her discovery, now wandered in and sat on the table.

"My best friend is in love with an Elf…" she half-muttered to the ceiling, apparently trying to absorb the information.

"Shiriel, don't be silly. I am not in _love_ with an Elf, I'm… it's a crush."

"Well my dear, to be perfectly frank—"

"—As I'm sure you shall be—"

"—you have _crushes_ infrequently enough that this is a _major_ event." Shiriel jumped down from the table and put out a dish of cream for the little grey cat in the street. "So, since it seems that you mean to take your sweet time about falling in love, I am just going to have to make the most of this." Calla removed her toast from the fire.

"That," she said, emphasizing the word by skewering a fresh piece of bread with the toasting fork, "sounds distinctly ominous." She handed bread and fork over to Shiriel. "Should I be worried?"

"On the whole? Yes."

Once again, they were kept hopping all day. Calla sat at her loom, shedding, and picking, and beating, and beneath her hands a rich brocade began to unfold itself. Shiriel scrubbed down the table, covered it, and spread her work across is, keeping the door open for better light. Stitch after stitch after tiny stitch, and slowly the pale green silk thread turned into curling ivy around the edge of one wide sleeve. Shiriel's practiced fingers were so comfortable with the work that she still found time to hassle Calla about the identity of her Mystery Elf. Around noon, Calla declared that since Shiriel had been so clever about figuring out it was an Elf she fancied, that she was going to leave it up to her to work out which Elf it was, as well. Shiriel kept quiet, then, racking her memory of the King's coronation to see if she could recall Calla looking particularly at any of the Elves, and the house was quiet except for the clack of Calla's loom and the rustling of the silk dress as Shiriel rearranged it now and again.

The sun was getting low in the sky when Calla called it a day. She leaned back, rolling her head, trying to loosen the tight knot at the back of her neck that started every day as a dull ache and steadily crescendoed until it became a nagging, intolerable pain. Shiriel, having noticed that the loom had gone silent, came in and rubbed Calla's neck and pressed her thumbs in between her shoulder blades.

"Shiriel, with a friend like you, who really needs a man? Or, you know, an Elf?" Shiriel sat down on the bench and hugged her friend.

"Come on, Calla, let's close up shop and get ready for tonight. I brought over my pink linen."

"In early spring? You'll freeze."

"I'll stay near the fire, or under Cadfael's arm, and anyway, I brought my flannel shift to wear underneath. Honestly, don't you want me to wear it?" Calla was still convinced that she would catch a cold, shrugged and let it go.

The girls tied up their work, shut the door and the shutters and retreated to Calla's bedroom to get ready for the evening. Calla had been wearing a plain dark brown wool dress with the sleeves rolled up and a grey apron, and her long black hair was hanging down her back in a braid. Now she pulled open the doors of her wardrobe and contemplated the two nicer dresses hanging before her.

Calla enjoyed this. In her everyday life, she tended to be a no-fuss no-frills sort of girl. Her daytime dresses were unadorned, she wore no jewelry, did her hair simply and often wore a thick, clunky belt covered in pouches, where she kept cloth samples, spare shuttles, accounts records, order details, and anything else she thought she might need to hand during the work day, and sometimes it was just nice to dress up and feel pretty. She had a grand total of two out-of-the-ordinary dresses, a blue silk and a red velvet, but these, she prided herself, were more or less splendid. She had woven the cloth herself, so, while she had paid a pretty penny for the materials, she hadn't paid for labor and things had come out roughly even. At least that was how she justified the expenditure to herself. Privately she confessed to herself that she was a snob about the quality of fabric, but she thought that, given her talent and profession, she could be excused.

She pulled out the red velvet and ran her hand across it. Since the material of these dresses was so superior to anything most girls of her station wore, she had kept them unembroidered and simple; she didn't want to make a spectacle of herself. Shrugging off her working dress, she slipped on a clean shift, pulled the red velvet over her head, and tugged and straightened smoothed it out. She belted it, then she brushed out Shiriel's long hair and Shiriel brushed out hers and they stood and faced each other for a final insection.

"Sweet as a rose," Calla declared.

"Just beautiful, my dear, really I will be amazed if your Mystery Elf doesn't sweep you off your feet the _minute_ he sees you, or at the absolute, very _least _come over and introduce himself. Oh, and I'll be watching you _all_ night to see who he is, you do know that, right? I mean to know by the time I get home, so I'm keeping my eyes on you _all_ evening."

"You will forget all about it the first time Cadfael takes your hand and leads you into a dance. Come on, let's hurry so we don't get stuck at the end of a table."

They were late anyway, but Cadfael had saved them seats. As they sat down, Calla's eyes flicked to the high table. He was there all right, sitting to one side of the King, in all his golden glory. His head was bent, as he listened to something that the Dwarf to his right was saying, but as he listened, whether by complete chance or because he felt someone watching him, his eyes flicked away from his friend and looked directly into hers. Calla felt herself go scarlet and looked away and gazed avidly at her plate.

"Calla?" Cadfael's voice interrupted her just as she was beginning to berate herself for being the most idiotic clodhopper ever to waddle over the face of the earth. "Are you too warm? You look a bit flushed."

"Yes, thank you, would you pour me some wine?" As she drank from her goblet, she stole a sideways glance back up at the high table. He was looking away again, absorbed once more in talk and laughter with his friends. _He probably didn't even register me. What a little fool I am!_

It turned out that Calla had been wrong about Shiriel forgetting to watch her closely when she went to dance. In point of fact, the whole plan seemed to slip her mind almost as soon as she sat down, so the three of them spent the evening, again, pleasantly. When they had finished eating, Cadfael danced two dances with Shiriel, and one with Calla, and then a third with Shiriel. After that one of Shiriel's cousins found her and whisked her away to chat with her aunt, and Cadfael came and sat down next to Calla, frowning slightly.

"Calla," he said, watching Shiriel happily trading gossip with her aunt, "have you noticed how much Shiriel loves that dress? I—It's not that I don't like it, I think she looks very pretty, but even I can tell it's awfully expensive. Linen's something of a luxury item, isn't it? I didn't think you could get it around here, not easily. And I… Well, you're her best friend. Tell me, please, do you think that Shiriel's going to expect me to be able to pay for things like that often? I'm just a guard. That's not the kind of thing I can afford all the time. Is she going to be disappointed?"

Calla laughed.

"Don't worry about it, that's not why she loves the dress. At least, it is a little, Shiriel and I both appreciate quality, but that's not mostly it. It's just that after a great deal of work and trouble I produced that pink linen for her eighteenth birthday. She was so entirely bowled over that I ended up having to persuade her to accept it at all. And even then it was nearly a month before she could bring herself to turn it into a dress, since, as she said, she 'couldn't bear the thought of cutting up all of Calla's lovely work. It's not that she's spoiled, Cadfael, it's just Shiriel being sweet." Calla paused for a moment, and mused, on her friend's behavior.

"You know, when she did give in, and after the dress was finished, there was a little cloth left over which she has vowed she will make into the cover for a little pillow for her firstborn baby girl."

Cadfael smiled—a nice smile but one which clearly said "women!" all the same. Calla plucked absently at the skirt of her dress for a moment before she looked up at him, her face serious.

"And, actually, I've got something to ask you. When you and she get married, are you still going to let her work? Will you want her to stay home? Normally I wouldn't ask, except that… I really don't think I can run the business alone."

"Well in that case, let me put your mind at ease: I have no intention of asking her to stop working. She's happy with her work, and I wouldn't dream of splitting you two up. Much too risky a thing to try; I'm afraid if I ever made her choose between the two of us, she'd run off with you."

Calla laughed and they fell into quiet banter until Shiriel came back and sat between them.

"Well," she said, "You wouldn't _believe_ the great store of information I now have on all of my cousins' sniffles, calluses, and bunions. Somehow, even the _nicest_ aunts get like that, I think, which makes me exceedingly glad that I have no brothers or sisters to go about having nieces and nephews—sons and daughters, of course, I mean, but nieces and nephews to _me_—and making me into an aunt, and also, Calla, do you realize that Lord Faramir is talking to someone who is pointing at you?"

"_What_?"

"Right over there." Shiriel twitched her eyebrows expressively. Calla's gaze followed this vague signal, and she saw that, sure enough, on the far side of the fire, Lord Faramir himself was talking to a soldier was pointing her out to him. Calla watched them covertly, pretending to gaze into the fire. Lord Faramir clapped the soldier on the shoulder, said something that looked rather final, and then faded away into the crowd. Almost immediately, the soldier started coming over. When he was on her side of the fire, she suddenly recognized him—this man had served with her father, and she had met him once or twice before. Calla now pretended not to notice, still watching the fire intently, until the soldier stopped and called her name. Calla jerked her head up then, as though arising from a reverie.

"Yes? Oh, hello!" She smiled at him.

"Calla, would you mind? I have a message for you." Calla glanced at Shiriel who was practically squirming with excitement. Calla stood and went of a little ways with the soldier, racking her brains for his name.

"Calla, I've just been speaking to Lord Faramir—" (Here Calla raised her eyebrows as though in politely surprised interest) "—and he requests that tomorrow night you be his guest at the second table." At this, Calla gasped. The second table was reserved for soldiers, men who had distinguished themselves in battle. "He knew your father and your brother, you know, and he was telling me how much he wished that they could be seated there, and I mentioned you. So. He asked that I extend this invitation. I think he wanted it to come from someone familiar," he added when Calla was silent for a moment. Calla took a deep breath, blinking back tears.

"Please tell Lord Faramir that I would be honored to accept his invitation," she choked out. The soldier nodded and went away, and she stood, swaying a little for a moment, until Shiriel, unable to restrain her curiosity, came rushing over expectantly.

"Well?" When Calla told her, she, too, gasped. "Oh, Calla, what an honor! You accepted didn't you? Are you… all right?"

"Yes," Calla sighed, her poise regained. "I just didn't know a compliment could feel so much like an open wound." Shiriel put her arms around her, and they hugged briefly.

Calla was quiet for the rest of the night—not melancholy, just subdued. Her father's death, two years ago, still hurt, but it wasn't the fresh, keen stab in her heart that her brother's death was. Still, she was a woman of Gondor, and if there was one thing that women of Gondor were used to, it was loss; years and years of the loss of good men, sons and fathers, brothers and husbands. Comfort came not from empty assurances that things would be all right, but from the certainty they had that those who died in battle did so proudly and did not regret it. So when tears prickled in Calla's eyes now and then she scarcely knew whether they were from grief—she could hear her heart crying out for them to come back, please, please, to their own Calla—or from the fierce pride she felt on their behalf.

Shiriel and Cadfael were dancing again, and Calla, sitting alone now, gazed absently about her. Eventually her eyes wandered up—again—to the high table where the king and his betrothed were still sitting side by side. The Dwarf she had noticed before appeared to have gone to sleep in his chair, and the Halflings…well, two of them were still decorously in their seats, but the other two were standing on their chairs apparently (as far as Calla could tell) singing. She grinned, and glanced to the side of them. The Elf was watching them as well, and his head was thrown back and he was smiling and his eyes were dancing and… and…

"Oh," whispered Calla to herself. "Oh, oh, _oh_." He was simply too beautiful. It almost hurt to look at him. Calla went on looking anyway.

A/N: Okay, a few things. First off, next chapter, Calla'll actually _meet_ Legolas, so the story should start moving along a bit more quickly, then. I know that my pacing tends to be kind of slow, but I hope that's all right. I wanted to show a bit about Calla and Shiriel's daily life, though, so that they'd actually be real people with ordinary things going on.

Secondly, I am assuming that, to a greater or lesser extent, every natural fibre except wool is a luxury item, since I doubt that silk, linen, or cotton are produced in the climate of Gondor—but then, the production of textiles in climates presumably similar to England isn't exactly my area of expertise. If anyone should happen to know and felt like leaving the info in a review, I would not object… I also assume that, therefore, there's some trade going on with some pretty foreign places, since Arwen, in the movies, was definitely not wearing wool all the time.

Thirdly, I hope people are not going to be bothered too much by descriptions of clothes. I know this is a Mary-Sue flag; it's just that Calla's a weaver, and one who likes what she does and takes pride in it, so I consider that it's the sort of thing she's likely to notice.

Finally, if you've read, please review! I gotta say, I personally feel this chapter is a little blah. Kinda too much a repeat of the first? My only excuse is that, again, I wanted to show a little bit of Calla's daily life.


	3. Chapter 3

It was still fairly early when Calla arrived for the festivities on the following evening. Honored though she was by Lord Faramir's invitation, she was also very conscious that she would probably be the only woman a table full of soldiers who had distinguished themselves in their services to Gondor, and she felt that she would stand out quite enough as it was, without showing up late on top of it all. She looked around, nervously smoothing the skirt of her blue silk. Maybe in her effort not to be late, she'd come a bit too early. Hardly anyone else was here, just a few people here and there in little clumps. Two of these, fortunately were at the second table, where she would be sitting. Calla took a deep breath and moved to sit down, pretending she didn't notice as people glanced at her sidelong.

"Uh… miss?" The two soldiers seated a little down the way from Calla were looking at her skeptically.

"No, it's—it's all right. I'm supposed to be here," Calla reassured them with a smile. The two soldiers glanced at each other and turned towards her again, their expressions rather patronizing.

"Little lady—" one of them began, but Calla cut him off, coolly.

"I am the daughter of Cadan, who fell at Osgiliath, willingly slain by an arrow so that the Lord Boromir might be spared from it. I am the sister of Callain, who rode to his death in that last, futile attempt to retake Osgiliath from which none but Lord Faramir ever returned. Lord Faramir himself has asked me to sit here tonight in their stead to honor their memory; please, do not 'little lady' me." The expressions of the soldiers changed as she was speaking. The nearer one leaned forward.

"Cadan was my captain. He died as you say, to save Lord Boromir. You—you are his daughter?" The soldier bowed his head, and the momentary indignation that had flared up in Calla was completely extinguished. She dropped her hand over his and squeezed it gently, and they smiled at each other.

"I remember your father, one night…" And the reminiscences started. The three of them fell to talking, and eventually, in twos and threes, the table began to fill up and the air was filled with voices—conversation, laughter. Where Calla sat, at the second table, both were more melancholy than at other tables. Calla felt her heart swelling inside her, as she listened to the men around her talking, not about themselves and their own deeds—though she knew, by the fact that they were there at that table, that they all had stories to boast about—but about those of their fallen friends.

Trumpets sounded, and everyone stood as the party of the high table entered—the King, with the Lady Arwen on his arm, and behind them the four, strange little Halflings , and Eomer, the new king of Rohan, and his sister Eowyn, and, Gimli, the brave Dwarven companion of the King, and… and… and…

Calla did not see the rest of the party. She had gone suddenly and selectively blind. All at once, the entire world existed in a golden head, a proud, beautiful Elven face, bright eyes, pale and piercing. The movement of the stars in the heavens was nothing to the movement of his neck as he turned his head. Calla felt that she would choke or burn up if she did not look away, but she also felt that to burn up watching him was a better fate than letting him out of her sight for one instant longer than she had to. Somewhere, faintly, beneath the overwhelming brightness of her dazzled brain, a little bit of her stood apart, looking on critically and wondering that the mere sight of someone—albeit an Elf—should affect her so deeply.

It was not until she realized that Lord Faramir was coming to sit at the head of the second table that she managed to shake herself out of her reverie and raise her glass to the King and the Lady Arwen with the others. Then they all sat again, and the feast began in earnest, and the talk began again in a growing rumble. Calla, only a few places away from the head of the table, was close enough to Lord Faramir that, when their plates were nearly empty and they were all on their third or fourth glass of wine, he was able to lean over to her and ask about her peculiar necklace. Calla fingered the thick, unadorned chain around her neck.

"It is made from the chain mail of my father's armor. Before his burial, I had these links removed to remember him by." She paused. "Please, Lord Faramir, tell me—before my brother died—did he say anything? Was he…did he know that he would not come back?"

"Yes, he knew," said Faramir, bowing his head. "Your brother never deceived himself about his chances in any battle, and least of all, in that. He was," Faramir smiled, "the most cheerful pessimist I have ever known. He always counted on the worst happening—expected the greatest host of enemies, the most devious cunning of the enemy—and the worse he calculated the danger to be, the more light-heartedly he went to meet it. When he was most certain of his death, he would joke, and charge the enemy with such a grim and reckless laugh. Yes, he counted on his death that day that we rode to the massacre at Osgiliath." He looked at her. "On that day, there was no dark corner of fear in Callain's heart."

Calla gave him a watery smile, holding her head high, and fighting back tears as she felt something inside of her relax. Since her father's death, companions who had been there with him had told her about his last day; but of those who had fought with her brother, only Faramir remained. The thought that he would have known of her, much less spoken to her—and that she would ever have the same comfort that she had had for her father's death—had never crossed her mind. All she had had of her brother to bury was his severed head that had been catapulted over the wall by the orcs of Mordor, and that was all she had expected to have.

"Thank you," she whispered, trying to force down the lump in her throat. In the end, she found felt that perhaps the wine left in her goblet would do the job best, and she took a few gulps of it to clear her head.

The dinner went on, and gradually the tables grew a little emptier, as men and women got up to dance (and some who had had a bit more than enough to drink were carried of home by their friends) and to mingle and talk and sing. Soldiers on either side of Calla vacated their seats, and Calla was just thinking that she might go and find Shiriel and Cadfael, when a wonderful, terrible, impossible thing happened.

_He_ came over and sat down right next to Faramir, two places to Calla's left. She was suddenly completely incapable of movement. Shiriel was driven utterly from her mind. Calla stared very hard at her plate; with all her might she willed him to look at her, and at the same time she was terrified that he would.

He didn't. He and Lord Faramir seemed to be carrying on a conversation that they had begun earlier, one about the poets of Gondor. Calla sat quietly and listened, gradually becoming absorbed in the conversation. She would have loved to be in it; she was quite a reader herself, and an opinionated one, and she wanted the Elf to notice her, but her tongue seemed too thick and heavy to make any words. She wondered if Shiriel was watching, and had guessed, and what she would say when she found out that Calla had been three feet away from the Elf and not even had the courage to catch his eye. She sighed quietly and returned to eavesdropping, as she pushed the last meat juice around her plate with a heel of bread.

"…but consider, by contrast, the works of Mardil the Younger, written when Gondor was in the midst of a long and peaceful era." That was Lord Faramir talking. Calla nodded silently, but was caught short at what she heard next.

"No, the more I read Mardil, the more I find he does not bear rereading. His work grows stale with familiarity."

"Philistine!" Calla said it with a smile, but inside she was writhing, unable to believe that it was she who had said it.

"I'm sorry?" Oh, he was looking right at her now. For one moment of cold insanity, she felt that she would was going to get up and run away, back home, to her books and her loom and a life where her stomach didn't turn to ice, but then, just as she was about to stutter something and excuse herself, when the thought flashed across her mind that since she was this far along to making a fool of herself, and she might as well be in it to the hilt. And at least this way she wouldn't regret not taking a chance.

"I said 'Philistine'. And anyone who can say that Mardil the Younger's works can get stale deserves it!" She was laughing as she said it and he smiled, and the cold lump in her chest melted suddenly and relief flooded her.

"And why is that?"

"Because his poems are, as Lord Faramir says, the products of a happier time, when the world was brighter, in the height of Gondor's glory, when it was young, and strong, and—and before the laughter had gone out of it. And it shows in absolutely every aspect of his writing. His meter, completely different from anyone else's before or since, the lilt within each line and the overall, slower, grander crescendo, like a drum roll, and the like waves on the sand, ebbing and flowing. It's so full of life and joy; it's like a young sun laughing as it rises for the first time, and _that_, sir Elf, is why I call you a philistine. Anyone who can read Mardil and not be moved… well, how can he say he loves poetry?" She paused for breath, and felt that she was flushed with exhilaration. But her fear was gone, now that she had got going on something she cared about.

"Well said, Calla!" Lord Faramir grinned at her, and the Elf held up his hands in mock surrender.

"I fine defense, miss, and one which I cannot entirely disagree with. In fact, you name the very things which made me love his poetry when I first read it. But perhaps my feelings on Mardil are the result of my long life; when I read his poetry now, I feel as though I have outgrown it."

"If it is possible to outgrow first love, then I count myself blessed to have the short life of a mortal."

"First love?"

"Absolutely! Mardil's works set fire to my heart long before anything—or anyone—else did. I remember my father reading them aloud to my brother and me when we were very young. There's a bit halfway through the third book (but I forget which lines) about the Young King as he appears at the gate, holding the enemy's head by the hair, when everyone had thought him dead, that's so beautiful I used to lie awake at night saying it to myself over and over and just aching because it was so beautiful. If that isn't love, what is?"

"What indeed?" He smiled at her in earnest now, and all at once she remembered her awe of him as shivers raced up and down her spine. She wondered if his keen Elvish senses picked up on things like that. _If they do, he's extremely diplomatic about it. But maybe Elves are used to humans going all goopy over them. _

"I'm sorry," he said, "I did not quite catch your name earlier. I am Legolas, son of Thranduil, of the Woodland Relm."

"And I am Calla, daughter of Cadan, woman of Gondor."

"Cadan? Is he of one of the noble houses of Gondor? His name is not familiar to me."

"No, my lord. He was a common soldier who worked his way up through the ranks, as was my brother. For my part, I am a weaver. Not very grand at all, I'm afraid," she said with a smile.

"The pursuits of peace have a grandeur of there own, which does not rely on bloodlines or legendary deeds." Legolas was quiet for a moment, and seemed to look far away. "It was to preserve that simple grandeur that we went to war. If anyone doubts it, he should look a young Sam, the Halfling companion of the Ringbearer."

"Oh?" Calla cocked her head inquisitively.

"Yes, before he left his home, his was a gardener known only to his friends and family, unheard of outside his own small village. And, I believe, that if he had not loved peace and gardening and a quiet life so much, he would not have had the will to fight for them so hard."

Calla looked at the high table, where a plump, shy-looking Halfling sat quietly beside the Ringbearer. Everyone, of course, knew about the Ringbearer, and everyone knew that he had had a faithful companion in his long trial, but few people actually knew much about that second Halfling. Yet, at any rate. After all, everyone expected that his deeds, his part in the tale of the One Ring, was already being set down by countless bards. Calla wondered briefly how much they really knew about him, and how many of them would get things wrong. She was just about to ask Legolas how he knew the Halfling so well, when he shifted and rose to his feet.

"If you will excuse me. It has been a pleasure meeting you. I hope you will not think me _too_ barbaric for my opinion of Mardil. If ever you wish to continue our discussion…" He trailed off, bowed politely, and was gone, back to the high table. _Back to people more worthy of his company. _

Calla sat frozen for a full thirty seconds, as though she had had the breath knocked out of her. Then, gasping a (probably inadequate) thank you to Lord Faramir for the honor of including her there at the table, she rushed off to find Shiriel.

"Shiriel, Shiriel! Sorry, Cadfael," Calla panted, dragging her friend away from the middle of a dance, and leaving poor Cadfael bewildered.

"What is it, Calla? Good _heavens_, you look like you have a _fever_, are you all right? Cadfael!" She whirled back to her fiancé. "I'm taking Calla home _right now_, I'll see you tomorrow." She held Calla around the waist and began to shepherd her through the crowds. "Now my dear, are you well? You're very flushed, and I can _actually_ feel your heart hammering, and I just _knew_ that that table you were at tonight would be draughty, and I'll bet _anything_ you caught something from one of those _soldiers_—they're always carrying sicknesses around, getting them from one another, being as they're apt to be in such close quarters so much of the time. I have to watch Cadfael's health like a _hawk_."

"It's not that, Shiriel. I've just been talking to—well, to him." Shiriel gasped deeply.

"Oh, _Calla_, not that fair-haired one, the one who sits right up with the King himself?" Calla nodded. "Oh, dear Elbereth, you _do_ know how to pick them, don't you. I saw the three of you talking—that is, the two of you and Lord Faramir—but you looked so _comfortable_ I didn't think for a minute that that was _him_, or _he_, or—oh, this is _much_ too exciting for grammar!" She paused to take a breath. "Actually, I _was_ looking at you, and I don't think I've seen you so _talkative_ with _anyone_ in years. Oh, _Calla_, does this mean you got on well? Oh, don't tell me here in the _street_, come home, and we'll sit on your bed and tuck up our feet and you can tell me _everything_."

A/N: Okay, sorry this chapter took a little longer than the others. I've been traveling and then jetlagged for the past few days, but I should be back to (relatively) normal now. As promised, Calla has met Legolas. Hope it was a bit of an atypical (for a Legomance) meeting, and that you'll like the way their relationship continues to unfold. In this chapter, yes, all that stuff about the poet they were discussing was entirely made up by me, so don't go looking for it. I'm not exactly what you would call an expert on the history of Gondor, so things have been kept deliberately vague, but I think (hope) the exchange worked anyway. Thoughts? I think of Calla as very pretty (Actually, I have a specific girl in mind from the movies for this character-- any of you struck by the pretty Gondorian girl standing to the side of the rode when Faramir rides off to die? I'll have a look at my DVD to see if I can't pinpoint her more exactly, but she's wearing blue-grey if memory serves, and has very dark brown/black hair pulled back in what appears from the front to be a sort of bun, maybe, with the hair rolled on the sides of her head. Anyone know who I'm talking about? Anyone?) but I don't want Legolas to be too smitten with her looks, since he is, after all, an Elf. Thank you again, one and all, for your reviews. More are always welcome!


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Right, originally, this chapter was going to be the second part of the last chapter, but because of the traveling delay, I wanted to get something posted, I went ahead and put up the last chapter without this bit. So if the last one seemed to end abruptly, that's why. I will probably edit or update this eventually and just splice this stuff in at the end of chapter three. But in the meantime, here we go.

(Oh, also, before I forget, I got an email from chocolatejet which had a link to a page where you can see a screencap of the girl I was babbling about last go-round. If you go to www . arwen-undomiel . com / sc / rotk / SoF . php (just delete the spaces) and look at the first and second pictures in the second row, that's the girl I was on about. This story pretty much started because I was watching to movie and I wondered what her story was and then got a bit carried away. Thanks chocolatejet!)

Calla sat on the stoop of her house, of the little grey stray cat that haunted her street. It was still very early, but she hadn't been able to sleep very well. She and Shiriel had stayed up late talking, and Calla had recounted, as clearly as she could remember, every word that had passed between Legolas and herself. Now, with a fitful night of sleep behind her, Calla was torturing herself with second-guesses.

She had been too forward. Much too forward. Unthinkably presumptuous. Legolas of Mirkwood was one of the companions of the King and she had had the gall to scold him for his literary tastes. (Still—Mardil's poems, _stale_? When she thought of that, her shame momentarily evaporated.) What must he have done? Gone back to his friends and told them, maybe laughing, about the insolent little maid who had given him cheek? But no—she was giving herself too much credit. In all probability, she hadn't even made an impression on him. By this morning any memory of her must be utterly gone from his mind as though she had never even crossed his path. Calla buried her face in the soft back of the little cat.

"Oh, cat, it's just not fair," she whispered. "It's not fair that he can turn me upside down and flood my whole world just by being there, while I make no more impression on him then a feather blown against a mountainside." The cat wriggled from her grasp, yawned unsympathetically, and slouched off to find a patch of early morning sun. Calla sighed and hugged her knees, and sat in the doorway, gazing abstractedly at the paving stones.

Shiriel breezed in a little later, and for a moment Calla was afraid she was going to have to go into the (now painful) details of the previous evening, but Shiriel, luckily was bubbling over with other news. She and Cadfael had set a date; they would be married next month, quietly and simply. Now that the shadow of the east had been destroyed and the King had returned and spring was coming, everything seemed perfect for starting their new life together as soon as possible. Of course, her wedding dress would be just ordinary wool, nothing fancy, since she had no intention of going into debt just as she started married life, but maybe she could find a nice weave—

At this point, Calla rapped her knuckles on Shiriel's head, told her not to be a little idiot, and produced a bolt of creamy-white poplin. Shiriel broke down in tears and asked how she could possibly have it finished already, since she and Cadfael had only been engaged for a few weeks. Calla rolled her eyes and told her that everyone else in Minas Tirith had considered the engagement a sure thing for a few years now. And then they had their morning toast and Calla put out a little dish of milk for the stray, and the two of them set to work. Calla, still upset at having made of fool of herself the night before, found her mood lightening as she listened to Shiriel. Shiriel, when she was not keeping up a monologue about how to keep a wedding quiet in order to avoid fussy relatives, sang. She had a fair, sweet voice, not particularly suited to singing epic ballads, but perfect for the old, simple folk songs that she loved.

She was humming a quiet refrain when a knock came at the door. Calla, still bent over her loom, heard Shiriel stand up and open the door, and then a voice, a man's voice, saying,

"Is this Fine Local Weaving and Embroidery?"

"Yes, that's us. I'm Shiriel, and I take care of most of the embroidery part, and Calla's back there at the loom. She does the weaving. Obviously. How can I help you?"

"I've been sent to you with a potential order," the man replied, stepping inside and closing the door.

"I see. Actually, I think we're a bit swamped at the moment, so if your employer is in a hurry… But Calla handles arranging orders, so you should probably talk to her. Calla?" Calla stood up and came over to the door as Shiriel went back to her work table. Calla pulled her expense book from one of the pockets on her heavy belt and addressed the man.

"Well as Shiriel says, we actually have a number of orders in at the moment. What exactly are you looking for and what sort of time-frame are we talking about?"

"Let me explain. You know that the King will be married to Lady Arwen before too much longer."

"Yes," Shiriel broke in, looking up from her work. "That's the reason for most of our work. Ladies who will attend want to have new gowns for the occasion."

"Well, so does the Lady Arwen—understandably," the man said with a smile.

"Wait—what?" Calla wasn't sure what she was hearing. "Sir, I'm sorry, but did you mean what that sounded like you meant?"

"If it sounded like I meant that Lady Arwen's seamstress has asked to see a sample of your work in order to consider you for her supplier for the royal wedding—then yes."

Calla looked at Shiriel. Shiriel was staring at the man, open-mouthed.

"I…We… Calla?" Calla was silent for another moment while she gathered herself. She was not used to thunderbolts stepping politely through her door before mid-morning.

"Um, yes, thank you. Shall—shall I bring the samples myself, or give them to you?"

"I will take them, if you don't mind, and let you know what is decided."

"Yes, well, Shiriel, why don't you get your samplers ready, while I go and cut a few yards." Shiriel still seemed a little dazed. She looked at Calla blankly.

"Now?"

"Yes, my sweet, now will do nicely." Calla went into the back room, took out her scissors and tape and started measuring off half-yards—the blue and gold silk brocade, the deep red organza, the pale purple organdy, and (her pride and joy, and it almost hurt her just to cut it) the cloud of pale, silvery-grey chiffon. She folded them all and put them in a basket, which she handed to Shiriel. She added her own samples, and then the messenger took everything and said something about letting them know (which both girls were still a little too dazed to really catch) and then he was gone. The girls looked at each other.

"Well," said Calla in a sort of a strangled voice, but she didn't get any farther because Shiriel swept her in a violent hug.

"Oh, _Calla_! I can't—! Is this—? _Lady Arwen's bridal clothes_!"

"Shiriel, calm down. The job isn't ours yet and it is more than likely that there are much more experienced—not to mention talented—people being considered. Let's not get excited yet."

"Not get _excited_? It's a bit late for that. As though you weren't practically _exploding_ with excitement, Calla, you're actually _shaking_. And how in the world did Lady Arwen ever come to hear about _our_ little business, I wonder?"

"I can't imagine…" Calla turned away as she said it, afraid that Shiriel would see the blush creep over her face. Somewhere between the cutting and the folding, it had rushed over her that she had mentioned it to _him_ the night before—that she was a weaver with a little business. Could it be, could it possibly be that he had remembered that and mentioned it? Because if he had, then she hadn't completely slipped his mind. And maybe it meant he didn't think she'd made a complete fool of herself. Surely if he'd gone as far as recommending her, he couldn't hold her in contempt?

Calla struggled to maintain her standard pessimism—realism, as she called it to herself—but she just couldn't help it. A little seed of hope seemed to have lodged itself somewhere around her heart and it was beginning to put out delicate little green shoots. Much as she wanted to tell herself that she was being unreasonable, foolish, conceited, she found her heart kept racing exstatically, unbidden. It was not until hours later, after the day's work was done, and dinner was eaten, and she was back at home in her bed that she gave up the struggle, clutched her pillow fiercely, and lay awake in the darkness, grinning into it for a long time.

O

And a week went by and there was still no word. Shiriel's undiminished optimism about their prospects was beginning to wear Calla out. At least, it wasn't Shiriel's unbridled cheeriness that was getting to her so much as the need she felt to temper it. Calla wanted the work and she wanted it badly, but she didn't admit it. She felt (and laughingly berated herself for her own silliness, but did not overcome it) that if she said it aloud she'd jinx everything. She couldn't go on being downbeat; her own hopes were too high. She couldn't go on listening to Shiriel chattering about her high hopes; her own fears were too great. Calla felt she was going insane with anticipation.

And then there was him. She'd seen him still, at the feasts in the evening, but no lucky chance had thrown them into easy conversation again. She had considered going up and asking him if he had been the one to bring her little business to Lady Arwen's attention— in fact, she considered it every night, and once or twice, when some other lady held a conversation with him she nearly did it—but then what if he hadn't? Calla didn't think she could face the embarrassment if he said 'no'. So instead she stole glances at him all night long. Once she even caught his eye, and he smiled a sort of polite smile of recognition which caused her heart to beat a frantic tattoo on the inside of her chest and more or less deprived her of sleep that night, but that was all that had passed between them.

Calla felt that if she did not do something very energetically with all her might she would be driven to madness. She would have liked to run—sprint—for miles without stopping until her lungs burst and she fell down, but there were bills to pay and orders to fill and food to buy and traders to bargain with… So she worked. Frantically. She wove with frenzied concentration, she scoured stalls and vendors for materials of almost impossibly exacting standards, and she haggled and argued doggedly and made some of the best deals of her career, and was generally so diligent that in spite of the small flood of orders she'd had recently she was well ahead of schedule. The feverish work began to worry Shiriel who, after a week had gone by, dragged her out of the house at around midday to have a light lunch out on a sunny wall, looking down at the busy market below, to see if she couldn't calm her down.

Which was why they missed the messenger. Which was why, when they got back, there was a note nailed lightly to the door. Which was why a few passersby and one stray cat were surprised by the semi-hysterical laughter of two young women simultaneously hugging and jumping up and down and attempting to dance in the street.

O

Calla took a deep breath. She was standing before the door of the finest seamstress in all of Minas Tirith, the woman in charge of producing Lady Arwen's entire wardrobe. The instructions had said for her to come on her own—Shiriel's work wouldn't be needed until later. Calla shook herself, stood up straight, took another deep breath, gave the iron knocker a steely look, grasped it (wondering a little if that hand was really hers), and rapped sharply three times. There were footsteps and the door opened.

The finest seamstress in all of Minas Tirith was a dumpling. Everything about her was round. Her body was round, and her face was round, and her cheeks were round, and even her eyes seemed particularly round.

"Hello, I'm Nadial. You must be Calla. Come in." Calla stepped inside. "I was very pleased with the work you sent along, though I didn't expect you to be so young." The older woman looked Calla over with an appraising eye. "Still, if you can do the work, that's all that matters. I'll need you to work here, rather than out of your home, since I'll have to have everything on hand. We have looms here, and some supplies, though I imagine that you'll need to find more as you go along. All expenses of that sort will be taken care of by the King, so you're to spare no expense. And you'll have to spend most of the day here. If you can get here for dawn or a little after, that would be best, as we have a lot of work ahead of us. You'll be working with one other weaver as well, to make the work go faster. Her name is Chanda, and she'll be starting tomorrow. Now come and get settled."

And Calla did. She had thought she would be nervous, but the moment she picked up the first skein of silk, her worries evaporated. She held it lovingly, almost reverently, unwound a length of it, held it up, ran her fingers over it, and she knew two things. First, that this was far and away the best she'd ever worked with. And second, that she understood cloth, and fiber, and weaving as she understood her own hands and arms. As she went to work, tying threads to the warp beam, she was quite sure that she would be able to produce the most beautiful cloth for a wedding garment in at least a hundred years.

When, seven hours later, Nadial cam to tell her to take a short break, she was still sure of it, but she was also beginning to think that the effort might well kill her. Her arms were ready to drop right off her body and her neck and back were screaming in protest. She was also dreadfully hungry. Nadial brought out bread and butter and some cold chicken and a jug of milk and they made a pleasant, if rather hasty meal. When Calla finished she stood and stretched her back and rolled her neck and turned to go back to her loom, but remembered something and stopped short.

"Nadial, just out of curiosity, who referred me to you?" Nadial looked up at her.

"Lord Faramir, of course. Didn't he say anything to you? No? Well, it's like him, I suppose."

"Yes, I suppose it is," said Calla with a smile. She felt like hitting her head against the wall. She was an idiot, a dolt of the deepest dye. Of course it hadn't been Legolas. What madness had induced her to hope that it might have been? And how could she have been so dim, so colossally wool-brained as to have forgotten that Lord Faramir had been there too, at that conversation, and heard her say she was a weaver? And Nadial was right, it was just like him to do this sort of thing. He was the sort of kind man that bothered about his companions' widows and orphans. (It _was_ kind of him to do, Calla told herself fiercely, gritting her teeth. And she was an ungrateful, unreasonable slug to resent him for not being someone else.) If she had had the wit of Gondor's thickest, dullest child she would have known in a minute that it was Lord Faramir who had put in a good word for her. But she didn't. Had someone dropped her on her head until her brains oozed out her ears and then tried to replace them with wool?

The next four hours were not kind to Calla. Quite aside from her arms and back threatening to spasm the moment she went back to work, she berated herself inwardly the entire time. And whenever she found that her stream of self-abuse was drying up she frantically renewed the attack, and she did not even dare to ask herself why, because she was afraid that if she let her mind look inward, should would have to acknowledge that the little seed she had been fostering in her heart all week had been covered in a sudden frost.

By the time she cleared everything up and left for home, it was nearly eight o'clock. She was going to be late tonight. They'd get bad seats tonight, far down the tables, on the ends of benches. Maybe they wouldn't even be able to sit near each ohter. But Calla was too drained to care. She wasn't really in the mood anyway. She'd have to be up early tomorrow, and she wasn't really hungry, and she just wanted to collapse into bed. And she had to make her way down three more levels of the city before she even got home…

She stopped short when her stomach flopped oddly and turned to ice. From where she stood at the top of a flight of wide stairs she could see him, Legolas, walking slowly on a balcony, a shadowy figure in the twilight, his head bent over something. Perhaps he sensed someone watching him, because he looked up and around and—Calla braced herself, just in case she turned to jelly—straight at her. He smiled and nodded and held something up for her to see, but the light was too dim and she couldn't make it out. She shook her head and shot him a quizzical look. Apparently his eyes were much keener than hers, because he called out,

"Mardil! Volume one," before he waved goodnight and disappeared inside.

Shiriel was completely baffled Calla showed up at her door out of breath as though she had been running, flew into the house like a whirlwind, caught her around the waist, and lifted her into the air in a bear-hug. There were times she would swear her best friend was totally out of her mind.

A/N: Whee! It's been too long! So here's the next installment, moving, I hope, the plot along nicely. As you will probably have guessed by now, this story is fairly people-oriented, by which I mean that the main action is really all about character relationships, not epic adventures like the quests and battles of LotR. That's not to say there will be zero action, but it's just not my main focus. Incidentally, you may be wondering why I rated this story the way I did. Well, it's not going to come up for a while, but there will be at least a little Very Sad Stuff a bit later on. Some of it, depending on the delicate sensibilities of the reader, possibly a little tough to deal with. (No, not rape.) So mainly I rated it this way to be safe.

Also, I have no idea what a wedding in Middle-earth would be like. I'm still trying to figure out how to portray the ceremony, since I'm definitely going to be showing Shiriel's wedding, even if I don't desecribe Aragorn and Arwen's. I also have no idea whether or not ME brides wear white. I pondered this for a while, and then decided, why not? So they do.

Comments? Criticisms? Uncontainable praise? It doesn't really matter, please review!


	5. Chapter 5

It was just dawn as Calla climbed the wide staircase to the door to Nadial's workrooms, the manifold pockets of her belt bouncing against her. She paused for a moment at the top, smiling down on the balcony where Legolas had paced and read yesterday evening. She didn't expect to see him, she just wanted to take a moment to smile down on it beatifically; this morning, she felt like bestowing a blessing on everything that crossed her path. Or singing, or something. Calla settled for whistling as she opened the door and made for her loom. She sat at her bench and looked about for a few minutes before she got down to work. It was a pleasant place, the wide, white room with the early morning sunlight pouring in through the graceful arched windows, the heavy tables mad of dark wood, littered with samples of cloth, and skeins of thread, and pins and shuttles and tape measures. The windows faced east, and the light was just changing from the watery grey-gold of dawn to the warmer morning light. It stained the floor and the walls pale pink and spilled across the room and through the wide doorless arch on the western side which opened into the corridor beyond. There was also a second loom in the room today, near her own, presumably for the other weaver who would be starting today.

Still smiling, Calla bent over her loom and let herself slide into the pattern of the weave. Now and then snatches of the folk songs Shiriel loved to sing floated through her mind, and she hummed them in time to the steady rhythm of her shuttle as she threw it, and outside the windows the sun climbed higher in the sky. She had almost forgotten all about them when Nadial came around the corner and through the arm, leading another girl—a little older than Calla—behind her.

"Calla, this is Chanda. The two of you will be working together for the greater part of this task. Chanda, here is the loom you will be using. Calla will be happy to show you the supplies that we have ready, and as I told her yesterday, if you want anything else, the King will cover the cost of all materials, so feel free to go out and get what you need. Calla, how're you coming along with that silk?"

"Oh, not too bad," said Calla modestly. Actually, the work was going more beautifully and quickly than she had hoped, but she didn't want to give the impression of arrogance her second day on the job. And she didn't want to intimidate the new girl. If Chanda was feeling anything like she had yesterday, she was already nervous enough. Nadial, however, came over and raised her eyebrows.

"Not bad? At least you're not given to exaggeration. Very nice. Chanda, I'd like you to get to work on the gauze overlay for the sleeves of the dress. I'll be back sometime past noon to bring you both lunch and see how you're getting on. I've got some measurements to take and some planning to do in the meantime." And with that she went out.

Calla smiled at Chanda, who didn't seem to notice her, but went to the empty loom and sat down. Calla wasn't sure, but, she realized with faint surprise (and then distaste) it appeared she had just been snubbed. She attempted to shrug it off—probably just nerves, or shyness. Though to be honest, Chanda did not look like the sort of woman who had ever known what it was to feel awkward or shy. She looked, Calla thought, like the sort of woman who had been able to make _other_ girls feel awkward and shy from an early age. She was quite beautiful in a deliberate, unapproachable way. _Haughty_. The word sprang to Calla's mind.

_Oh? And you're a saint, are you? All she's done is not return one smile. You, meanwhile, are not only making up nasty, low-minded—not to mention unfounded—things to think about her—just so that you can have the pleasure of feeling vindictive— you're neglecting your work in order to do it._

Calla sighed and returned to her work. Sometimes she really resented her conscience.

O

In spite of lecturing herself rather sharply about the importance of generosity of spirit and then forcing herself to think of a few possible pleasant things about Chanda, and then doing her best to forget all about her and immerse herself in weaving, so as to leave the whole thing behind, Calla felt distinctly that something about her companion's presence was distracting her. It was only after three silent hours of work that she realized what it was: Chanda kept furtively looking at Calla's loom. At first Calla thought that she was looking at her own warp beam, but as they went on it became slowly clear that it was Calla's own work she was looking at.

It was another hour or so before Calla worked out why she found it so unpleasant; the other woman was clearly treating the work as a competition. Calla, once she hit on this, had to suppress a derisive snort. She settled for rolling her eyes covertly and admiring the slubbed silk beneath her fingers until she was happily immersed in the work, dead equally to Chanda and to her own unpleasant biases.

O

When Nadial came by with lunch a while later, Calla pulled herself away from the loom with her good mood completely restored. So it was with some chagrin that she found herself plunged deep into a prolonged and awkward silence as soon as Nadial left the room. Twice she nearly worked herself up to say something to the other woman, but there was something so icily aloof about her that Calla felt quite crushed and shy. Giving up as a lost cause, she devoured her food so that she could return to work as quickly as possible. She was just brushing crumbs from her hands when Chanda gave her a tight little smile (which did not, Calla noticed, reach her eyes) and at last deigned to speak.

"I'm surprised I haven't seen you about more often. Most of us who do work for the nobility know each other fairly well. Is there some lady's seamstress in particular who has been keeping you a secret?"

"I—no," stammered Calla, feeling herself blush and loathing herself for doing it. "I've never really worked for the nobility before. My friend and I run a little business of our own, just the two of us, taking commissions— and work from—well, just people in general. But this is our first time working for a really noble client, so we're quite—quite excited, and… um…" She trailed off as Chanda's smile became at once wider and more clearly forced.

"Oh, how… nice. For you. Where is your shop?"

"Oh, no, ah, we don't have one. We work out of my house." Calla squirmed as Chanda nodded dismissively. Going back to her loom, Calla suppressed a groan. She could just tell she was going to spend the rest of the afternoon seething.

O

Calla trudged to Shiriel's door in low spirits that evening. Shiriel looked at her concernedly as she flopped into a chair with a melancholy sigh.

"Are you all right, Calla? Come on, put your feet up on the table and tell me about it. And _look_! I actually found sugar cane today—I'm _so_ glad the war's over— and got some to celebrate our business's triumph. Now, what's wrong? The work isn't going badly, is it? Is it too much? Too hard?"

"The works fine, Shiriel," Calla said, kicking off her shoes and accepting the stick of sugar cane. "It's the woman I'm working with who's the problem. Stuck-up, patronizing harpy. She made me feel about two inches tall today when she condescended to talk to me just because we don't typically work for the nobility, or some such nonsense. What an idiotic thing to be snobbish about—as if we weren't both working girls, as if because she's woven things for the seamstresses of lords and ladies before, that somehow elevates her to levels beyond the comprehension of mere mortals. Lord Faramir isn't like that and he's actually the Steward.

"And it's even more infuriating that I _care_! I _know_ it's stupid even while she's talking, I _know_ that it doesn't make the slightest difference whether or not we have a shop, I _know_ that everything she says is not only completely absurd, but calculated to hurt, and I'm _still_ reduced to a stammering, blushing—ugh!"

Calla bit down savagely on the sugar cane and sucked it grimly, glowering fiercely at nothing in particular. Eventually she sighed and smiled.

"All right, I'm done now, no more ranting. I just don't understand how—or why—some women do that to others. I am not looking forward to working with this woman every day. But never mind, forget it. Let's talk about something else."

"All right, how set are you on going to the festivities tonight? Because for one thing, you look _exhausted_ and should probably get an early night, and for another thing I want to spend some time, just the two of us, and for another thing I want to talk with you about the wedding arrangements—because in case you forgot, I'm getting married in less than _three_ weeks and there are some things to work out still, and then finally, I want to hear all about this one true love of yours."

"He is not my true love."

"Only because you aren't trying hard enough. Now what do you say, stay in tonight? You can sleep over here instead of going home and just start for work in the morning. _I_ think it would be good for you to take a night to just rest up and let me take care of you. You need to relax, you've been overwrought lately, you have to admit it, and you can't hide it from me, I know these things."

"Well," said Calla with mock reluctance, "I suppose if I don't you'll worry yourself into a frenzy."

O

Calla left extra-early the next morning, feeling refreshed. It was still dark out when she reached the workrooms and let herself in, but she wanted to have some time, before Chanda arrived, to collect herself and get lost in the weaving. After an evening with Shiriel, she felt better equipped to deal with her partner. Her plan was simply to ignore her as much as possible. She would be pleasant, she would be civil, but she would not go out of her way to befriend Chanda, and she would do her best to forget about her and just do her work well. That was what she was there for, after all. Calla sat at her loom in the semi-darkness, repeating this to herself. She took a few minutes to look over her work and was pleased with what she saw; she had been afraid that in her bad mood the afternoon before, she might have lost her lightness of touch, or been careless, but she satisfied herself that the weaving had not suffered. She went round to the back of the loom to check the warp threads were all in order, when there was a light sound of feet in the corridor outside. Calla looked up, wondering what could have brought Nadial to the workroom so early, and caught her breath.

Legolas came around the corner and into the room.

"My Lord," she said straightening up. He gave her a swift smile.

"I thought I might find you here. I've been looking for you in the evenings—I want to continue our discussion. Will you be there tonight?"

"Y—yes, I will." Calla, in fact, had been planning to stay in again, but somehow this had completely slipped her mind.

"Good. Do you get a break during the day?"

"Yes, I stop for lunch."

"Here, if you get a chance, look at this." He moved towards her and pressed a leather-bound book into her hands. Calla grasped it mechanically, scarcely even knowing what it was. She felt her fingers burning where his had touched them. "I've marked a few passages I want to talk to you about. If you have time, read them over. I'll come and look for you tonight at the head of the staircase near the eastern entrance to the hall, as soon as Aragorn leads Arwen to the dance. Can I count on finding you there?"

"You can. I will. Be there, I mean. See you tonight." He smiled again, and with a quick, courteous half-bow, was gone.

Calla was very glad that she had got there before anyone else, because there was simply no way that she could stop herself from spinning around the room, hugging the little brown book.

O

Calla expected the day to crawl by; it flew. At some point, she supposed, Chanda must have come in since she was certainly there when Nadial stopped them for lunch. Abandoning her loom, Calla plunged into the book of poetry Legolas had left, devouring it along with her bread and cold meat. As she returned to work for the afternoon, she let her practiced fingers and feet find the rhythm of the loom, while her mind went over and over the passages. At two, she wondered what common theme could possibly link the parts he had selected. At six, she had repeated them under her breath so many times that she had discovered an unusual metrical quirk common to them all. At half past six, she judged that she had put in enough work for the day and that if she left now, she'd have time to make herself ready for tonight. She gathered her things up, nodded goodnight to Chanda, let herself out, and fairly ran home.

She heated pot after pot of water over the fire until they were steaming and poured them into the great copper basin she used to bathe. She picked up the large lump of yellow animal-fat soap and the harsh bristly brush she usually used, changed her mind, went to her cabinet and took out a piece of clean flannel and a little paper-wrapped package. It contained a soft, white bar of scented soap she had been given as a gift some time ago, and never quite brought herself to use.

She had just climbed out of the bath and wrapped herself up when Shiriel knocked at the door. Calla let her in and shut the door after her, shivering in the chilly evening air.

"Calla, what are you doing? I thought you wanted to stay at home tonight so that you could rest up, and how did you get back early enough to _bathe_? What's happened, has something come up? You're acting very oddly of late, you know, you're not usually so _madcap_."

Calla, ecstatically, though perhaps not very coherently, managed to make her understand that she had seen Legolas again, had spoken to him, and that they were meeting. She immediately went into a frenzy of fussing. She brushed out and braided Calla's hair, pillaging her window boxes and planters for flowers to put in her hair, debating, at great length, which of the two formal dresses Calla ought to wear (at length deciding on the grey-blue silk) and then, once Calla was wearing it, straightening and re-straightening it, and removing imaginary specks of lint until she pushed Calla, now completely flustered, out the door, and told her to save a seat while she, Shirel, ran home to change clothes.

Her nerves buzzing as she climbed the stairs to the hall, Calla clenched her fists, dug her fingernails into her palms, and reminded herself to walk, not skip. She sat down at one of the long benches, glancing anxiously at the empty high table. She was suddenly certain that she was wrong about the whole thing—there had been a mistake. He'd been joking, or she'd made it all up in her head, or he had thought she was someone else. But no, the book was real and solid in her hand and she could run her finger along its edge to reassure herself. But maybe he wouldn't come. He might be ill, or busy, or he might forget, or…

Fortunately, she was not able to dwell on it. She had promised Shiriel she'd save her a seat, and now Calla was distracted by fending off newcomers until her friend arrived. Eventually Shiriel slipped in beside her. They glanced at each other, and waited breathlessly until the party of the high table arrived and—yes, of course—he was there, in his usual place. Shiriel gave Calla's hand a squeeze under the table. Calla gazed at him, hoping (dreading) that he would look her way. She saw him gazing around. Was he looking for her? Calla's stomach tightened into a knot. Shiriel spent the meal trying to get her to eat. Calla spent it watching the King and waiting. It had been ages, a million of them at least, she was sure. Maybe he wasn't going to dance tonight. Maybe he was too tired. What would happen then? Would Legolas just give up and not meet her? How would she know what to do? What if he tried to meet her and she missed him? Anxiously, she turned the book over and over in her hands.

And when the King did lead Lady Arwen out to dance, Calla held her breath and looked at Shiriel. Shiriel reached out, put her hands on either side of Calla's face, and pinched her cheeks hard.

"You'd gone all white. You needed some color. Get going."

Calla was never really sure how she managed to stand up, or walk in the right direction without tripping, or keep her knees from buckling when she saw him (and Time, she was sure, slowed to a crawl) standing there with his hand resting on the top of the banister, peering expectantly into the crowd. And then he saw her and he smiled right into her eyes, and all of Calla's nervousness vanished. After all, she was pretty certain that her heart had just exploded, which meant that she must be dead, and who had ever heard of a nervous corpse? She walked up to him boldly, smiled, and handed him the book.

"You know why I marked off those passages?"

Calla grinned and quirked and eyebrow at him archly.

"Bucolic dieresis. In complete unexpected and totally different contexts."

"I first read Mardil poems while he was still alive, and it's taken me this long to notice it. What did you make of it? I'm not sure what to think. Bucolic dieresis is so inextricably linked with the poetry of herdsmen and pastoral scenes. I could have understood if he'd used in lines which were parts of battle scenes and I'd have thought it a nice bit of contrast and a good piece of irony—but like this? I don't know. I going to insult your beloved poet again, so brace yourself: I'm tempted to think he was just being sloppy."

"Sloppy! Did you learn nothing from my last scolding? Mardil does not get sloppy. Here," Calla flipped through the book to one of the passages Legolas had marked. "Here the Soldier and his son disagree about his (the son's, I mean) contest with his friend. If I were to describe this scene I would describe it as a tense disagreement, a definite clash of personalities, but not even actually an argument, and certainly not a fight. The diereses here, here, and here I take to mean a few things. First, I think it's meant to remind the reader that such a confrontation is the sort of thing that takes place almost exclusively in a peaceful environment—and you remember that Mardil was writing this in the first few years of peace after a long and brutal war—since in bloodier, more desperate times, no one has the leisure to care too much about such trivial things.

"Second, and this, I think, possibly more important, bucolic dieresis invariably is used when something genuinely and positively good is happening."

"You think Mardil was portraying family strife as an agreeable thing?"

Well, no. And yes. Sort of. Not agreeable, not pleasant, but good—beneficial."

They had wandered away from the noise of the crowd, down the stairs and were standing in a long gallery that ran at right angles to the staircase. They were standing and facing each other now, framed by an open arch with a view down across the city. The music floated down the stairs and soft light from the torches in sconces on the wall fell across Calla's face. Legolas looked at her, smiling but skeptical.

"You're going to have to elaborate. Familial tension—beneficial?"

"Absolutely! I mean to say, what better opportunity are we given to really force ourselves outside our own preferences and learn to love what's before us? Nothing stretches you like your own family…Oh, I'm saying this badly. Here, let me try again." Calla thought for a moment. "Suppose you knew a man who collected works of art, one who put together his own private museum. Would it surprise you to know that he enjoyed all the paintings, or sculptures, or what have you, in his collection?"

"No."

"Of course not. Because the man chose them himself, so naturally they appeal to his own taste. Now, would you expect the art in the collection to comprise a particularly wide range, a really catholic representation of styles and periods and artists?"

"No, since they had all been selected to suit his precise taste. I think I see where this is going, but continue."

"Right. Well such a man, though he might have rooms and rooms full of works of art, could not really be said to have broadened himself by bringing all this art together into one collection. He would merely have taken what already appealed to him and gone on appreciating that. I think it's the same way with people. We can choose our friends, our spouses, the people we bring ourselves close to. So even a man with an enormous circle of friends can't be assumed to be an openhearted one who welcomes the presence of his fellow men as a blessing on his life. How much effort is there in liking people whom you have chosen as your own friends?

"But family is different. None of us gets a say in who our parents or our brothers will be. Sometimes—often, probably—they are people whom, were we not related to them, we would pass over as friends, people we simply wouldn't bother with. But when you're stuck in a family with these people, you have two choices. You can—admittedly with effort— learn to love and see the value in people whom you have _not_ chosen… Or else you can have a very unhappy family. It's good to be forced to live with others like that. We need to be taught that our own tastes aren't really the measure of all worth. It's only when we've done that that we can really be kind—without being condescending."

Calla stopped and looked at him. Legolas was now gazing down at the little flickering lights throughout Minas Tirith and the dark plane beyond, his blue eyes steady and thoughtful, his expression inscrutable.

Calla was glad of his momentary silence. All this talk of loving one's family had rubbed raw the wound on her heart. She could not have gone on speaking, even if she had not finished her piece, since there was a lump in her throat. She fought it down and blinked back the tears. Legolas nodded slowly and faced her.

"You're right." He studied her for a moment. "You surprise me, Calla. I would not have expected such a response from one so young. Nor one so... clearly expressed." Calla took a deep breath, expelling the last of the tearful quaver from her throat and smiled warmly at him.

"You flatter me, my Lord. If I could express myself better, I would not need so many words to do it."

"The Ents would disagree."

"Oh? The Ents? I've heard stories, rumors, but know almost nothing about them—"

She broke off as a voice called down the stairs,

"Legolas? Legolas!" The silhouette of a Dwarf stood at the top of the stairs. "Legolas, you're wanted by Aragorn. Hurry up!" Legolas waved to him to show he understood and turned back to Calla who could not hide (and did not try) her crestfallen expression.

"Then next we meet, I will be happy to give you a lessen in natural history. But for now I must go." He bowed politely and gave her rueful grin. "Our conversations seem doomed to be too short. We haven't even finished with Mardil yet." With that, he turned and ran lightly up the stairs.

Calla watched him go and practically collapsed against a pillar, where she leaned, hugging herself for a moment, before flinging herself up the stairs. Half way up, Shiriel rushed down to her, smiling.

"Well? Come back, not to the noisy hall, come back home, and tell me all about it, _at__once_! Oh, Calla, what's he like? He's so terribly handsome! What did he say? What did _you_ say, are you meeting again, and _when_? You have to wear the red velvet next time, he hasn't seen you in that yet. After that I don't know _what_ we're going to do, except perhaps put up your hair differently each time you see him, and maybe find new things to put with them—I _wish_ you had more necklaces!"

"Slow down, Shiriel!" Calla laughed, but she herself was soaring, giddy, swelling, bursting with happiness. Arm-in-arm, they walked back through the darkened streets towards Shiriel's house, Calla faithfully relating every word, describing every look and shiver and thrill from their short meeting. When they got to Shiriel's door, she went in and turned to Calla with a mischievous smile.

"You know, Calla, just because you swear up and down that this is _just a crush_ doesn't make it true."

Calla slammed the door in her face and danced all the way home.

A/N: Hey there folks! I had hoped to get the first part of this chapter up as a mini-chapter before ffn did it's update thing, but I failed, so I decided to finish it off and post the whole thing. Hope it wasn't too long in coming. I'm interested to hear reactions to this chapter, so, you know the drill. Thanks to all of you who review, I really do love to hear from you all. I have not had time to edit this chapter and my laptop is about to die, so, um. I'll have a look at it in the morning and see what I catch.

Writing a criticism for poetry that doesn't exist is harder than you might think.


	6. Chapter 6

A week went by. Between her work and the preparations for Shiriel's wedding, Calla felt that she ought to have been too busy to worry that not so much a word had passed between her and Legolas since he had been called away by the King, but in the pit of her stomach she could feel a cold lump of doubt growing. She found herself sighing over her work and falling into glum reveries, running over and over in her mind all the reasons why it was likely that Legolas had tired of her, or forgotten about her, or… or… And then she would start and realize that someone had been speaking to her. All in all, though, she thought she was doing a pretty good job of keeping her mood to herself.

Until, that is, Shiriel confronted her about it. Shiriel had been chattering along quite happily, Calla hearing nothing she said and then jumping when Shiriel called her name for the third time. Shiriel sighed wearily and slumped down next to her.

"You're thinking about him again?" Calla just nodded. "Calla, I wish it wouldn't make you so unhappy. I don't understand why you get so _worried_ when things don't go right for a little while, or why you're so _sure_ that everything will go wrong… I don't understand why you _dwell_ on things the way you do." The girls sat for a moment in silence. Then Calla smiled and shook her head.

"I guess I didn't used to be like this, did I? I didn't used to mind things so much. I didn't used to be so afraid. I don't know, Shiriel. When _did_ I start—over-thinking everything and frightening myself? I didn't used to mind things. Like taking risks." Calla sighed and the two of them sat in silence for a while. Calla felt she wanted nothing but to sink into blank, semi-reflective silence, but she could tell that Shiriel was anxious, and she knew just what she was anxious to hear. So Calla gave her a squeeze and a smile and,

"I'm all right—or at any rate, I will be very soon. It's just that with everything going on I haven't had time to just take a deep breath for a while. Now," she patted Shiriel's leg and stood up, "let's finish packing."

There wasn't much left to do. Shiriel's wedding was in just over a week and this was her last night in her own house. The next day she'd be moving some of her things to Calla's, where she'd be staying until she was married, and Cadfael would be around with a cart to pick up everything else to take it to his house.

Calla knelt by the trunk Shiriel would be bringing with her and went through a mental checklist of the things her friend would need in the coming week. What was left? Shoes—and boots, just in case of rain—and that little pile of clean shifts. Those she could tuck into this corner here. What about her hairbrush? No, better not pack that yet, she'd need it in the morning. (Just when _had_ she got to be like this? Surely she could remember a time when anxiety hadn't paralyzed her as it did now…?) Box of recipes? Those might as well go straight with Cadfael, Calla had her own at home. What else? (Why hadn't she heard anything from Legolas? But that was nonsense—he was a hero, and an Elf, and a friend of the King. He was busy with other things and his life was full of other people. Honestly!) Ah, flannel nightgown. It was only early spring, after all, the nights were still cold, and there was no point in risking getting sick right before the wedding. Speaking of which, there was definitely a draught in the room and the fire was getting low. Calla went and stoked it up. Shiriel's sewing things were all packed, so that was all right. The kettle should be left out for tomorrow morning, and Shiriel would clean the hearth up then, too—no point in doing it now. (But if she believed those things, why, then, this dread feeling that she'd been forgotten—that she was forgettable? Why didn't knowing these things ease her heart like it used to do? When had she become such a worrier?)

Calla stood in the middle of the room and looked around. Except for the things Shiriel would need that night and in the morning, everything was packed. The rest of her things were in neat piles over in a corner of the kitchen for Cadfael to take. Shiriel came and stood next to her and looked around with a little sigh.

"It looks so much _smaller_ with everything packed up, I would have thought it would be the other way around. Poor, bare little floor-boards! Oh, Calla, I'm actually tearing up about leaving my own dear little house! I just love it _absurdly_, I really do, and I don't think I could leave it, not for anyone in the _world_ but Cadfael." Calla smiled and kissed her cheek.

"I don't think I could let you leave it for a lesser man."

"Well, I imagine I'll feel right at home in Cadfael's house in _no_ time—only it'll be _our_ house soon, I suppose, not just his—and then I'm sure I'll wonder how I could ever stand to live _anywhere_ else. Wherever I am always seems like it's the best place in the world. And it's closer to _you_, so there's another good thing."

"Right. Well, my sweet, I'd better be getting home. I've got another long day ahead of me." Calla started gathering her things up.

"Oh? How's the work going? Is the situation with Chanda getting any better?"

"I don't know." Calla sighed. "Sometimes I'm not even sure there is a situation. Probably she finds me as disagreeable as I do her, but it's not as though she's done anything, really. She just rubs me the wrong way. Our lunch breaks are a little awkward." Calla laced up her boots and put on her cloak. "It doesn't matter. And of course, it is good to have help. This deadline would be killing me if I had to do everything alone."

"Well, all right. I love you. See you tomorrow evening."

Calla walked home slowly in the dark, her head buzzing with thoughts. Plans for Shiriel's wedding, her progress at work… she'd heard of a vendor today who might have the perfect silk thread for when things got to the embroidery stage, maybe she'd check that out tomorrow. It was Shiriel's part, really, but Shiriel couldn't drive a bargain to save her life. No poker face. Calla smiled as she picked up the (empty) milk dish she'd been leaving out for the stray and unlocked her door.

But as she closed it behind her and looked around, the smile faded. Nothing was wrong—but everything was. The house was dark and silent, just as she'd left it. Two days of unwashed dishes were piled up on the table, just as she'd left them. The fireplace was filled with cold ashes, just it had been when she left this morning, and—it bore down upon her suddenly, crushingly—she was all alone, just as she had been this morning, and the evening before, and every morning and evening for day after day, all through the long months of winter and autumn, ever since.

Calla was seized by the mad urge to call out her brother's name. Even as the impulse took her and his name sprang to her lips, she choked it down, knowing that if she gave in to this longing ache she would be awake and crying the whole night. Just as she had regained her composure, an image blazed up behind her eyes—Callain's severed head being flung in the air, falling at the feet of the soldiers within the gates. Calla rushed to her bed, yanked her chamber pot from beneath it, and was sick. And then she cried—for years, it felt like.

When she was worn out with crying and felt as though she must have wrung her heart dry, she stood up slowly, lit a stump of candle, and began to tidy up. She washed the dishes, cleaned some excess ash from the fireplace, lit a small fire, and undressed and hung up her clothes. She sat on the floor and gazed into the fire, musing now on her state of mind. Grief was there, and loneliness, and something else. Something had been lurking in her now, for a while, she felt, which had bubbled to the surface and would not be overlooked. What was it? She chased the feeling with her thoughts, felt it hovering on the edges of her mind, just out of sight, just out of reach. Was it—? Was it—? No, it was gone. She shook herself and felt the dry, salty tear tracks on her cheeks and the crust under her nose and got up to wash her face.

Dissatisfaction. The word flashed across her mind as she dashed the cold water over her face. That was what she was feeling. Dissatisfaction with what? The answer flung itself at her out of the dark. Herself. Calla dried her face and bit her lip.

Shiriel had said it, hadn't she? She, Calla, had become an unmitigated pessimist. She always, _always_ put the worst spin on things. She always assumed that everything that could go wrong, would go wrong. She always expected the good things to be fleeting, the hard things to be lasting. She always considered things hopeless.

And it was worse—the torrent of truth was beginning to bruise her but it seemed a floodgate had been opened up in her mind and there was nothing she could do now to keep the thoughts out—it was worse than mere pessimism. Callain had been a pessimist of the first water. But what was it Lord Faramir had said? Something about how Callain had always gone ahead more lightheartedly the worse things were. And that was the difference between them. He, believing there was no hope, had acted anyway, and without fear; she, believing there was no hope, had become paralyzed by her own despair, had allowed herself to become inert, to stagnate, to wallow. However justified her cynicism was—and, she felt, a lifetime spent in the shadow of Mordor, watching brave man after brave man go to his doom was enough to make a cynic of anyone—she had not, she realized uncomfortably, dealt with it bravely. She should be ashamed; she _was_ ashamed. Had her father and brother—and all those other soldiers, for years and years—died so that, in the warm sunshine of peace, she could sit in the dark, a shriveled thing, a dry and wrinkled seed, afraid? And afraid of what—that if she went out into the sun to try her luck, see what she could do, nothing would come of it?

Something gave a little jump inside her, something old and familiar which she had not felt in a long time. Some tight, pinching thing around her heart relaxed, some heavy, bitter thing in her stomach lifted. Calla shuddered and remembered that the world was full of chances—and so what if she tried her luck and her luck failed her? If she stayed as she was now, so cautious that she would make no move, nothing would ever change at all.

She was lonely. And she was smitten with an Elf. And chances were, it was true, that he scarcely thought of her, that she was blowing through his life like a little breeze that would soon be forgotten. Well, if she was content to leave it at that, then she could be quite sure that that was all she would ever be to him. Calla went to her desk, pulled out a sheet of paper and an ink pot and a quill and sat down to write. _He will never feel that way about you_. Calla heard the familiar voice of doubt speaking clearly, felt hesitation descending upon her, and with a reckless, happy feeling, flung it aside. If she had no chance with him, then she had nothing to lose, did she? She set her pen to the paper and wrote:

_Master Elf,_

_Last time we met I was promised a lesson in natural history. A week may be the blink of an eye to an Elf, but remember I am mortal and impatient, and have pity! You know where to find me. Forgive my restless petulance and remember that I am_

_Sincerely yours,_

_Calla the weaver_

As soon as she had signed it, without stopping to read it over, she folded it, sealed it, and ran out into the darkened streets. Her feet fairly flew over the cobblestones and within minutes she had a stitch in her side, but she was afraid that her mood was not going to last, and that if she stopped she would think twice and go back home. So she doubled her pace until she came to a gate-house outside the palace, where a guard was awake, keeping watch. A look of concern crossed his face as she approached.

"Miss? What is the matter?" Calla laughed breathlessly, realizing how she must look—tearing through the streets at night, her hair flapping wildly, her bootlaces undone.

"Forgive me sir," she gasped out, "Nothing is the matter. Only—would you see that this gets to PrinceLegolas in the morning?" She handed him the sealed note. "It is nothing urgent, only see that he gets it."

"Yes, miss. Now you really shouldn't be out so late like this, miss, why don't you go on home."

"Yes, of course. Good night. Thank you."

Calla turned and started home again, only half-believing that she had really just written that note. She could still turn back, she could as the guard to give it back to her, Legolas need never read that note. She couldn't quite remember, now, what she'd written. She hadn't said anything very embarrassing, had she? She hoped not. Calla stopped. Maybe the mood that had come over her this evening was sheer madness… Calla bit the inside of her cheeks and rebelled. Old habits were hard to break, and old attitudes harder, it seemed. She wanted badly to go back to the guard and get her note back and burn it. She was just turning around when she was struck by a sudden vision of the future if she did this, the long, lonely, grey hours stretching on and on and on, each one just like the last… Calla shivered and wished she had paused long enough to put on her cloak. That guard was right. She really ought to get in, out of the wind. She jogged the rest of the way home.

In the morning, she was surprised to find that she had slept peacefully through the night.

A/N: Gaaah! A long wait and a short chapter, I know! Mea culpa, mea culpa! Really sorry about that, folks. I'm afraid updates won't be quite as regular for a while (some stuff going on at home, school keeping me hopping) but there shouldn't be quite as big a gap as all that again. I've been kinda waffling about this story, wondering about where it's ultimately going, and I've figured it out now, so I've got a better idea of my goal and that will help me keep things churning.

It occurred to me that some of you might want to know this: there will be no sex scene between Calla and Legolas, yes, even though this is a Legomance, for three reasons. 1) Can't write 'em. Frankly, I don't think many people can. They usually either wax way too lyrical ("her cherry lips parted and trembled like dew upon the grass in the early morn, as he gazed deeply into the depthless pools of her eyes" type stuff) or else they sound like something out of a biology text book or an instruction manual ("insert tab A into slot B"). 2) I've never yet read a story in which a sex scene really added anything. 3) I've talked to a friend of mine about this and she says that, among Tolkien's Elves, sex equals marriage. So yeah. If you're waiting for the big scene in which they get together, I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed.

Finally, one last thing. Since last I updated, this story has been added to the C2 community, "The Worst of the Worst". As you may imagine, I am not thrilled. I mean, that's not exactly what I was going for. But I never expected that this story was going to appeal to everyone. That's why I put the Mary-Sue warning in the summary. What really gets me about this is that this person thought my story bad enough to be included in "The Worst of the Worst" but, having read it and having had some things to criticize, didn't leave me a review. I know I've said before that constructive criticism is very welcome, and I mean that. So, if you're out there, and you agree that my story is that deeply flawed, would you please leave me a review and tell me why? Don't just scream that Calla is a MS or that this is a Legomance. That's the genre I've chosen to write. If you hate the genre, so be it. But please distinguish between some one writing well in a genre you hate and someone writing really atrociously. And if you feel that I fit into the latter category, please tell me why. Really. I am trying to get better.

Okay, I'm done. I promise more story before too much longer. As always, please review! And thanks.


	7. Chapter 7

In the next few days Calla marveled at the change had transformed the world around her. She was vaguely aware that the change was, in fact, in herself; that the sky had never _not_ been vast and bright, those snowdrops had been ready to burst for days, her friends had always been good company, and that she, Calla, had simply had a thick fog lifted from her eyes. And she knew, or felt, that the mood was not going to last under its own steam, and that the old gloom was still lurking on the edges of her heart, waiting for the first thing to go wrong in order to reinvade. But, she told herself, at least she was conscious of it now, and that ought to make it easier to fight it off. In the meantime, she meant to enjoy every minute of the effortless happiness that was momentarily hers.

She made her way towards work so busy marveling at the sweetness of life that she was completely unaware that she was humming softly and there was a definite spring in her step, and blind to the smiles on the faces of the early risers she passed by. She sat down at her loom and went cheerfully to work, now and then bursting into snatches of song, and giving Chanda a pleasant nod when she, an hour or so later, glided into the room with the freezing pomp of an iceberg.

When Nadial came in with lunch, Calla remembered about the thread she wanted to get for Shiriel and asked if she could forgo lunch and run into the market and have a look at what this southern trader had to offer. That was fine, Nadial, told her, provided she came back afterwards to finish out the day—though, Nadial confessed, she was well ahead of schedule. (The new, happier Calla, it seemed, was not necessarily a more charitable Calla, because she gave a little squirm of glee when Nadial gave a Chanda a rather pointed look at this.) And if she did buy anything, she should submit a request for reimbursement of the amount she spent.

Calla made her way through the crowds thronging the market until she caught sight of the merchant she was looking for. He had set up a rather large stall and displayed his wares quite artistically, so unsurprisingly there were groups of women buzzing about. Most of them, Calla noted, seemed to be just browsing rather wistfully. She edged her way between two knots of women to have a look and raised her eyebrows, impressed. She had a look at some of the bolts of cloth that were on display. Grudgingly she admitted to herself that they were as good as anything she had ever woven. And the colors—that, she supposed was the benefit of being trader from the south. The dyes must have come from the Haradrim, they were so vivid, so exotic. Calla shuddered to think of what a yard of any of these would cost; aside from the quality, she suspected that someone had charged a good deal to face the risks of trading in such a hostile land.

"Are you looking for something in particular?" It wasn't the merchant himself but one of his two assistants, a sickly looking youngish man wearing a wide-brimmed hat. Calla tore herself away from the piece of cloth she was inspecting and smiled at him.

"Yes, I'm looking for silk thread to embroider a wedding gown, and had heard you might have something…"

The young man was very helpful. Calla nearly did a double take when he showed her a large spool of ivory-colored silk thread and another of actual gold. A vision of Shiriel's face if she could see these swam before Calla's eyes. With a pang of regret she told him to put away the gold thread. She would probably be reimbursed if she bought it, but as far as she knew gold thread wasn't called for in the plans for the wedding gown and much as she wished she could, Calla couldn't think of a way to justify such an expense. The ivory silk, though, was exactly what she was looking for. When it was clear that she actually meant to buy it, the merchant came over to haggle with her.

Calla could drive a mean bargain, but the merchant was no novice at it himself, and when at last they agreed on a price, Calla was very glad that the money wasn't really coming out of her own pocket. She pulled her purse from her heavy belt, counted out the money, and waited while the assistant who had helped her packaged up the thread, watching him idly.

Then she attended a little more closely. There was something distinctly odd about this young man. Something about him had been bother her slightly the entire time and now, looking keenly at him, she decided that there was something—something _wrong_ with the unhealthy pallor of his face in the shadow of his hat. What was it? It wasn't anything to do with illness, it was something else. Calla couldn't quite put her finger on it. Only—what was that little, darkish smudge along his jaw, near his neck. _Oh_! So that was it. Suddenly, in her mind, the colors of the man's face inverted. What had been bothering her, she realized, was that the color of his face was just very slightly too monochromatic. But of course, if his skin was naturally rather dark and he'd made himself up to hide it…

"Would you mind asking him," Calla nodded at the merchant, "to write out a receipt for me?"

"Not at all, miss." The assistant went over and spoke to the merchant and Calla, looking for it now, was almost certain. Hidden in the shadow of the hat's brim it was hard to tell that his dark eyes were dark brown, rather than dark grey, and the cheekbones were just a little different, and something about the nose. On the whole though, she realized, someone had done an excellent job disguising him. He came over with her receipt and as he handed it to her, Calla leaned forward and murmured quietly,

"You've got a little smudge just near your neck." He glanced at her in surprise—and his eyes were definitely brown (and, just now, a little panicky)—and then a quick, grateful smile. As Calla walked away, she saw him duck behind the curtain into the closed-off area where the stores were kept.

As she walked—quickly, she wanted to keep ahead of schedule—back towards work she wondered if what she had done had been very wise. After all, she knew nothing about this man except that he was one of the Haradrim, and a merchant. Ostensibly a merchant. After all, he could be a spy. But spying on what? The war was over. True, Gondor and Harad had never got along well, but merchants, where there was a profit to be made, had a knack for ignoring borders. Probably he really was just a merchant hoping to import a few southern luxury items and bring a few northern curios back to Harad to sell at some unimaginable markup. And besides, he had seemed friendly and been very helpful. If she'd made a scene right there in the market and revealed him for what he was, the crowd would probably have lynched him on the spot. The war might have been over, but the wounds had only just begun to heal. Calla had suffered as much as most people at the hands of Sauron and his allies, and the Haradrim _had_ been his allies. She wondered at herself for not hating him more. Surely she wouldn't feel so lenient towards an orc? No. But that was different. Orcs were just evil, they were killing machines. They were just made of evil. Men were different. Even Men who became bad—very bad—weren't born bad. And few of them were all bad. Calla shook her head, convinced, at least, that she had been right not to publicly expose him. Rubbing vinegar on raw flesh was almost certainly not the right way to go. All the same, she wondered if she ought to find a guard and mention it. It might not be a bad idea to have him watched.

Calla got back to the workroom to find a note waiting for her on the bench at her loom. She opened it curiously, glanced down at the signature and her heart leapt into her throat, then dropped into her stomach, then returned to her chest where it fluttered unsteadily.

_Calla,_

_I came by to beg your pardon for losing track of mortal time, only to be painfully reminded of the fickleness of Men. This very morning your note promised me that I would know where you would be, but when I came, never once doubting that I would find you at your loom, you were not there. As empty as your bench are the words of Men! Elves and Ents alone know steadiness—as you will learn when I give you your lesson—so I will hold to my purpose. I have promised to tell you something about the Ents and my word, once given, is never broken. I will come again and hope that next time you will have thought the better of your race's erratic ways and stuck to your loom. _

_Magnanimously yours,_

_Legolas_

Calla laughed hunted about for a scrap of paper, and wrote back:

_Most generous Legloas,_

_It was business that called me away from my loom today, and not some idle whim! Knowing, as I have come to do, how carelessly the Elves treat time I had not dared to hope that you would heed my note so quickly, otherwise I would, of course, have flung duty aside and stuck to my loom diligently lest I cause you any slight inconvenience._ (Calla wrote this, hoping it sounded sufficiently playful and not as though she would actually have done just that.) _ I send you no apology; you, clearly, hold me guilty so in the interest of balance I hereby exonerate myself of all crime. I will hope to see you soon. _

_Unrepentantly yours,_

_Calla_

Calla ventured out of the workroom and down the corridor where she snagged a passing errand boy and paid him to make sure that the note would reach Legolas of Mirkwood. Then she went back to the workroom, left her receipt and request for reimbursement on Nadial's table, and settled in to work for the rest of the day. She stayed a little long to make up for having come back after lunch. Chanda, however, stayed longer. Calla was a bit surprised—Chanda was not in the habit of putting in very long days—but supposed that Nadial's implicit disapproval from earlier had gone home.

Shiriel was there when she got back home, and Calla's spirits rose even higher. Today, she felt, could not have gone better. Not only had she made a good deal for an exquisite spool of thread, not only had she had a note from Legolas that sounded familiar and teasing, but now, to top things off, she was coming home to a bright fire and the smell of dinner and the company of a good friend.

Shiriel had to know everything. She snatched Legolas' note away from Calla and read it three times before she handed it back and demanded to know what all this was about his receiving a note from her that morning. So Calla told her all about her fit of insanity the night before and the note she had written to him and why she hadn't been there when he came by today. This led to a description of the silk thread she'd bought and Shiriel gasped at the price when Calla told her.

"There was a young man…"Calla broke off, hesitated, and decided not to tell her about the Haradrim merchant. Not that she thought Shiriel would be too critical of her decision, but she would invariably tell Cadfael about it, and Cadfael, Calla thought, would not understand.

"Yes…?" Shiriel prompted her.

"Rohirric. Huge and just so clearly lost, but wading through the crowd like a giant bear." This was safe. Calla and Shiriel had similar opinions of the men of Rohan. They were handsome, yes, and valiant, absolutely, but rustic? Calla wondered how often they bathed. She was a city slicker and she knew it but she could only imagine how much time you had to spend with horses to carry their smell everywhere. Shiriel giggled and then turned her mind back to the truly important matter: Legolas. They reread his note again.

"He says he was _painfully_ reminded, and I think that's surely a hopeful sign, since it _must_ mean that he was very sorry not to find you there, which would _also_ mean that he was very much looking forward to seeing you, don't you think?" Calla grinned and bit her lip, but protested.

"But can I take that seriously? He exaggerates everything in this." She waved the note about.

"Calla, you need to learn to read with the eyes of a _romantic_. A romantic would look and this note and say that of _course_ he wrote it in an exaggerated, playful tone, and so _clearly_ you can't take everything it says at face value, but that he might have slipped in one or two little bits that are _completely true_ hidden among the exaggeration."

"And the true bits are the ones that I can take as flattery, while everything that sounds like criticism is mere silliness, is that it?"

"Well…" Shiriel grinned.

"Speaking of romance, are you ready?"

"To marry Cadfael? Of _course_ I'm ready! I've been ready for _years_! I'd have married him in the middle of a _battlefield_ if that was the only way to do it."

"No cold feet then?"

"Not at all, I don't even want to _think_ about what it would be like to go through my life without him, it's like wherever he is, that's where _home_ is, so without him I'd just be this drifting _thing_. I'm definitely sure that I'm ready to marry him."

"Good. I'm glad."

O

When Calla arrived at work the next day Chanda was already there, working away. Calla sighed inwardly. It was good, of course, that Chanda was trying to get ahead in her work, but Calla had got used to having the room to herself in the mornings. She wondered if this was just a phase, or whether she should bid goodbye to her mornings of solitude. She went over to her bench, took off her cloak, and picked up the purse that was sitting next to her loom. She weighed it in her palm, opened it and looked in. It was the reimbursement for her expense the day before. Calla took her little account book out of her belt and entered the amount in the credit side. She made a quick inspection of her loom and of the work she'd done so far, gave a satisfied nod, settled herself on her bench, and got to work.

The morning passed slowly. She suspected that Legolas would come at lunch and she could not stop herself from glancing outside at the sky. Surely the sun was moving more slowly today than it ever had before? Was it moving at _all_? How could time crawl so slowly. She tried to banish her impatience but the words of his note (which was tucked safely in her belt) kept running through her head and she found she was working with a grin spread across her face.

At about noon she was close to bursting with eagerness, and yet when she heard footsteps approaching in the corridor she felt herself turning red and began to pay furious concentration to her weaving. The footsteps came nearer and then Nadial stepped into the room, carrying things for lunch. Calla's stomach swooped confusingly in relief and disappointment. Nadial put the lunch things on the table and both young women looked up and thanked her. She nodded in acknowledgement and turned to Calla.

"Calla, I hope you got your reimbursement all right this morning?"

"Yes, thank you, I did."

"I must say I was a bit surprised at the amount. I've had a look at the thread that you bought and though you were right, it is superb—just what we want to embroider the hem—I'm afraid that you've been cheated. Was the merchant who sold it particularly difficult to reason with?" Call blushed, confused.

"No, I didn't think so. He wasn't a pushover by any means, but I—I had thought that the final price was quite reasonable." She could feel Chanda gloating. "You really think I agreed to pay too much?"

"Yes, by a considerable amount."

"I'm so sorry." Calla bit her lip, annoyed with herself. "Is there anything I can do? Shall I return it and see if he'll refund the money?"

"No, I don't think so. After all, we do want it, but perhaps in the future you should clear things with me first."

"Of course. Again, I'm really sorry." Nadial nodded and left the room. Calla glanced quickly at Chanda and then away again. Chanda was not looking at her but her expression was nothing short of smug. Calla reddened, then felt supremely grateful that that hadn't happened in front of Legolas.

As if in answer to her thought, another set of footsteps, quicker and lighter, echoed up the corridor. Calla looked up at the archway smiling, only to be disappointed again, as an errand boy appeared and looked at them both.

"Which one of you is Calla?"

"I am," said Calla.

"I have a not for you." The boy took out a folded note and handed it to her. "I'm supposed to wait for a response from you," he said and he stood back a bit looking around the room, fidgeting a bit. Calla unfolded the note and read it.

_Calla,_

_Your note yesterday expressed your admirable devotion to duty, so I know you will understand when I tell you that mine to the King prevents me from coming to see you today. I, though, take this opportunity to set an example of courtesy for you, and apologize sincerely for not meeting you as planned. Do not feel embarrassed by the impertinence of your note; the Eldar know how to be indulgent to the Edain. We will meet soon, I am determined._

_Educationally yours,_

_Legolas_

Calla swallowed her frustration, grabbed a scrap of paper and wrote:

_Most patient teacher,_

_You will be pleased with your pupil's swift progress when you learn that I entirely forgive you the sin of not meeting me today without even mentioning my own generosity. If you do not come tomorrow, though, I will be forced to doubt the worth of the promise of an Elf. _

_Sanctimoniously yours,_

_Calla_

She folded it back up, handed it to the boy, tipped him, and went to get her lunch while he ran off.

O

She went home to find Shiriel standing patiently over a pot of stew. The smell permeated the house and floated through the door as Calla walked in. Shiriel turned as she enterd.

"So? Did you see him today? What did you two talk about, and _don't_ tell me that he _actually_ gave you a natural history lesson or I will have to hit you over the head with this ladle—you _do_ know that you're supposed to turn the conversation to more personal matters so that you can get closer to him don't you?"

"Breathe, Shiriel. We did not talk about natural history. We did not talk at all, because he couldn't come today. I did get another note from him though. Is the stew done? Serve it up and I'll show it to you while we have dinner."

Another long analysis of the Legolas' note ensued, in which Shiriel managed to show that absolutely every word of it spoke of his increasing devotion to Calla. Calla laughed at her and called her an idiot, but smiled and felt pleased. Even if Shiriel was wrong, it was nice to have a friend who believed that she stood a chance with this Elf lord. Then they went through every word of the note that Calla had written back, and as they washed up the dishes, Shiriel prepared to grill her on every one of his looks and gestures the last time that Calla had seen him. Calla felt that her protests that this was too much were going to do no good, but Shiriel's relentless questions were cut off by a knock at the door. The girls looked at each other, surprised, and Calla wiped her hands and went to answer it.

Two guards in full black-and-silver regalia stood there looking stern.

"Yes, can I help you with anything?"

"Are you Calla, the weaver?" one of them asked.

"Yes, is there something wrong."

"You're to come with us."

"Now? Why? What's wrong?"

"Yes, now. We're detaining you on suspicion of embezzling money from the King."

A/N: So, it's not as long as I might have hoped, but it's my fist ever cliffhanger. Any good?

Thanks to everyone who responded so encouragingly about "Heart's Garden" appearing in "The Worst of the Worst". All your kind words are very much appreciated. Also, thanks to the members of the lj community deleterius for their input. Two years ago, one of my stories (a really, truly awful Mary Sue) was reported there and someone sent me a link to it. It was a major blow to my ego seeing my story ripped apart, but it was also the beginning of my really applying myself to learn to write better. So the approval of deleterians (in my mind, at least) kinda validates all the effort that I've put into this.

Er, lesse, anything else? Oh—does anyone know what a Gondorian unit of currency is? I was sort of trying to avoid saying actual amounts of money this chapter because you really need the unit name in order to do that. If someone can tell me, I'll go back and edit this chapter so that things are a bit more concrete.

And in the meantime, thanks for reading and please review! I hope you liked this chapter.


	8. Chapter 8

Miserable, furious, confused, Calla sat on a bench in a hallway flanked by two impassive guards. So far she'd been asked about her parents, her living arrangements, how long she'd been in business, who her previous clients had been, who her regular suppliers were, and whether she had got herself into some kind of financial trouble, but she had not yet been told exactly why all this was happening. How long had it been? Two hours? Three? At least she hadn't been put in a prison cell. Yet, anyway.

The door opened and Calla looked up. An older man whom she had not yet seen looked out and motioned for her to come in. Calla got up and did as she was told, entering an office, accompanied by the guards. The man went and sat at a chair behind the large desk towards the back of the room, looked at her and gestured towards the chair that faced it. Calla sat and waited. The man looked at her for a moment before sighing and pushing something—a bit of paper—towards her on the desk.

"Is this the receipt you gave to the seamstress Nadial for your reimbursement?" Calla leaned forward and picked up the paper.

"Yes—well, no." The man raised an eyebrow and frowned. "I mean this is the right receipt, the one he wrote and signed, but it's been changed. He wrote me a receipt for twelve gold and thirteen silver coins, and this is for one hundred and twelve gold coins."

"Quite."

"And you think _I_ changed it? But I—I didn't! I wouldn't! I—I'm an honest person, I really am, just ask anyone. And besides, if I'd done this I'd have an extra hundred gold coins and I don't. I got back just exactly what I spent, just twelve gold and thirteen silver."

"Oh? So you just handed in the receipt exactly the way you got it and picked up just the amount the merchant wrote it for? What happened to the extra hundred gold, do you think?"

"I don't know. I don't. All I know is that I picked up twelve gold and thirteen silver coins just like I was expecting to." Calla gripped the edges of her chair and tried not to squirm. It was obvious to her that this man was deeply skeptical of everything she said, but how on earth was she to convince him? "There must have been some kind of a mistake, or…" She trailed off, feebly.

"And what about this merchant you went to—he's missing some very valuable gold thread, think that's a mistake to?"

"What? I don't know anything about that!"

"Really? Why don't you tell me what you did at his stall yesterday."

"All right." Calla took a deep breath. "There was a crowd when I got there and the merchant and his two assistants were busy, so I stood about for a bit and admired a few things—some of their bolts of cloth that were on display. And then one of the assistants came over to help me. I told him how I was employed and that I'd heard that they had some silk embroidery thread that my partner, Shiriel, would want to use later on. He showed it to me, and—well, he _did_ show me some gold thread as well, but I didn't think we needed it, so I said I'd just have the white silk. Then the merchant came over to haggle with me, and when we agreed on a price I paid him and he wrote the receipt and the assistant packed up the thread for me. And… and that's all."

She wasn't entirely sure why she still wasn't mentioning that the assistant had been one of the Haradrim in disguise. But if the burning, shameful sensation that gripped her when she opened her mouth to tell him was anything to go on, it was because she knew that she wasn't interested in telling him for the benefit and safety of Gondor, but only to save her skin. In her mind, she listened to herself disclosing his secret (_tattling_, _snitching_; the words sounded in her ears before she could stop them) and she could not rid herself of the feeling that it would be a cowardly, whining thing to do. The man's voice interrupted her thoughts.

"So if we were to search your house, we wouldn't find this gold thread or the extra money, is that right?"

"Yes, it is. Please, do go search it."

The man looked up at one of the guards and nodded to him. The guard left the room and the man wrote something down, then stood, paced around the room for a minute or two, and then stopped by a window and looked out. Calla sat nervously in her chair, not sure what she was meant to do. She was very tired and very wrought-up and very close to tears. She wanted to go home and crawl into bed and maybe fish her old rag-doll out from the bottom of her trunk and curl up for ever and ever. And then she wanted to wake up and find this was all a bad dream. Or else know who was responsible for all this. A rejuvenating wave of anger flowed through her. She hadn't done anything wrong and she loathed being bullied. She was damned if she was going to so much as sniff in front of this man. Justly or not, Calla convinced herself that he had deliberately kept her waiting in the dark all those hours just to see if she would crack. Well, he'd just have to be disappointed, wouldn't he? Calla sat up a little straighter. What was all this waiting meant to do? Intimidate her? Not likely.

"They'll have reached your house by now." The man returned to the desk and looked at her with his piercing grey eyes. Calla looked straight back, coolly. "Don't you think it would be better to be honest? Things might go easier for you if you confess."

"I have nothing to confess to. I have not lied, and I have not stolen. They won't find anything at my house." The man shrugged and settled back in his chair. Calla suddenly became aware of how uncomfortable her own was. She wanted to shift or get up and stretch a bit, only she was worried that he might think it looked like she was uneasy. She wished she had a book or something she could fiddle with casually. She wasn't sure where to put her hands or where to look. The minutes seeped by in agonizing sluggishness. Somewhere outside a dog barked. The man behind the desk tapped his fingers together and watched her through half-closed eyes. Calla clenched her fists and tried not to go insane.

At last there was a clatter of approaching feet in the passage outside, and then a knock at the door.

"Come in," called the man. Two guards entered the room and walked up to the desk.

"We found these underneath the woodpile in the kitchen. They looked as though they'd been stuffed there in a hurry." One of the guards dropped a leather purse and a bundle of cloth on the desk and stood back. The man leaned forward and opened the drawstring purse, pouring a pile of gold coins onto the desk. Slowly and deliberately, he counted them out into piles of ten. There were, of course, a hundred. Then he picked up the bundle of cloth and unwrapped it to reveal a spool of shining gold thread. He looked at Calla.

Her heart had sunk within her. If he had doubted her before then she was lost now. She looked back at him bleakly.

"I know you won't believe me, but I really have no idea how those things got there. I didn't steal them. I don't understand what's going on, but I didn't take those things." The man just gave her a sort of tired frown and nodded at the guards.

Calla found herself marched briskly along hallways by two guards, each of whom kept a tight hold of her arms. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening. She was not about to be locked away for theft. For how long? What happened next? This could not be happening. She didn't quite believe it, not even when then heavy oak door grated along the stone floor and clanged heavily, solidly to behind her. Not even when the jailor wrote down her details on a plaque and slid it into the iron slot on the outside of a cell. Not even when she stepped inside and the doors were slammed behind her and she heard the great key turn in the lock. Not even when she looked out through the little barred window and felt the cold iron in her hands.

Not until she stood in the middle of her cell with nothing left but silence did it sink in. There was a narrow wooden pallet with a worn blanket on it sticking out of one of the walls and a chamber pot, and that was all. Calla went and sat on the wooden bed, wrapping the blanket tightly around her shoulders. It was cold in here, and she hated the cold. Would it be cold all year? Oh, Valar! All _year_! She was shaking now, and she wanted to cry, but all her tears seemed to have dried up. She drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them as her mind began to race.

How had all of this happened? It must have been a mix-up, a mistake, only if that were true, how did those things end up in her house? And what about Shiriel? Was she all right? Would they see each other again? Would they let her have visitors? How long would they keep her locked up, anyway? What was the sentence for theft and embezzlement? She wasn't going to see Shiriel's wedding, she wouldn't be there to see her friend in her lovely white dress and her face all wreathed with smiles. There would be no last, warm squeeze of her hand before Cadfael took her away to be his wife, and no friendly chatter, no hearing Shiriel's happiness and pride of being mistress of her own house as she set things in order and got them just so. And when summer came, she wouldn't be outside to see it. There would be wild roses climbing up the wall of her house and she wouldn't see their buds in the morning, or smell them when they first opened. The Pelennor fields would be redder with poppies than they had been with blood, and the wide-open blue sky, free for the first time in memory from the black blot of Mordor—who knew how long before she would see it again?

And… and Legolas. He would be there tomorrow—or was it today?—to see her. He would come in, as strong and golden and merry and as the sun itself, and she wouldn't be there. And then Chanda would tell him—and maybe smirk while she did it—that she was in prison for being a thief, and he would go away disgusted by her and never think of her again, unless maybe it was to condemn her memory.

Chanda… Calla's hands tightened. Chanda had stayed late the day Calla had left the receipt. Calla had been there early in the morning. Could it be? No, surely. Unpleasent, yes, but criminal? Surely, surely not. That would be too appalling. It must be a mistake. But it wasn't a mistake. Those things hadn't grown legs and walked into her kitchen. That altered receipt hadn't been carelessly smudged. And somebody had to have taken the extra money before she, Calla, got to it and realized there was too much. Calla's head spun. She jumped up off the pallet and flew to the door, peering out through the bars. A torch flickered dimly on an empty chair. Would someone be there tonight? In the morning? Calla shivered. She wrapped the blanket around herself and began to pace.

For Calla it was the longest, most wretched night she had ever known. At one time she lay down and tried to rest but sleep, it seemed, wanted nothing to do with her. Through most of the night she walked restlessly back and forth between the little barred window and the back wall of the cell. Morning seemed years away, and the chance to tell someone—anyone—of the idea she had had. Not, she thought bitterly, that that meant anything. If Chanda was responsible for all this, then she had gone as far as taking the stolen things to Calla's house and planting them there, and it would be difficult to prove otherwise. If she was even right. Calla continued to shake. It must have been getting towards morning when she huddled on her pallet and fell into a half-wakeful stupor.

When the outer door clanged and scraped open she gave such a jump she nearly fell to the floor. She scrambled up and moved over to the door of the cell. There were voices outside as the guards shoved at the door, and then an exclamation that sounded like 'Oi!' and a slim figure darted into the prison ahead of the guards and Calla gave a little gasping sob as Shiriel rushed towards her. Calla clutched the bars of the window and Shiriel held her fingers and kissed them and cried.

"Oh, Calla, Calla, my darling, don't worry, we'll have you out in another moment, don't worry, it's all all right now, I promise. They're going to let you out, my sweet, so just don't worry about a thing, I'll take good care of you."

"Let me out—what do you mean? Did they catch her?"

"Yes, darling, they did, here, I'm going to stand back now so that he can unlock you. Oh, my poor sweet Calla!" Shiriel fell back against the wall, and a guard came up and turned the key in the lock and the door swung open. Calla stumbled out into Shiriel's arms. Shiriel wrapped her in a cloak and put her arm around her waist.

"Come on, darling, come with me and we'll get you a nice hot _bath_ and some _breakfast_ and you can have a nice _nap_, and when you wake up, it'll be like this was all just a wretched, awful dream, I _promise_… Do you mind that we go to the inn instead of home? The house is a bit of—of a _mess_ at the moment, and at the inn they'll do everything _for_ you, and also there's someone there that you probably ought to meet, when you're feeling _up_ to it…"

Calla nodded numbly and followed Shiriel out into the daylight, squinting. Her surprise was wearing off, and she was beginning to realize that she was cold, and hungry, and greasy and exhausted. A bath sounded wonderful. As for where they went, she didn't really care. She concentrated on Shiriel's soothing chatter—something about a hot cup of mulled wine-- as she moved dazedly through the streets. When they got to the inn Shiriel left her propped up against a doorframe, ordered a room and a bath, and told the innkeeper they'd want breakfast afterwards. Her friend had had a nasty shock and needed a little looking after. The innkeeper, a heavyish old man with a wooden leg and an avuncular air, looked at her kindly and told a maid to show them to a room.

It was not until Calla was relaxing in the bath—a great wooden tub had been hauled into the room and filled with steaming water—while Shiriel combed her hair that she began to feel herself again. The world, which had been moving in a dizzying swirl around her, began to stablize again. She took a deep shaky breath.

"Shiriel, what in Arda happened while I was in there? How did they catch her? Last I knew my house had been searched and a purse full of money and a spool of gold thread were found in the woodpile. Then I got shoved into cell, and the next thing, you're there and I'm being released. I feel as though I've gone mad, or else everyone else has."

"Well, I'm actually _exploding _to tell you about it, but I think we should wait. It wasn't me, you see, who was mostly responsible for getting things cleared up, so I won't know how to tell it so well. To be perfectly honest, I've just had the briefest little outline of an explaination myself, and when I heard the point of it, that you were being let out, I didn't stop to listen to any more and just ran to the prison and just _badgered _the guards until they opened up the door. If you're feeling better, we could go and talk to him over breakfast, the one who managed it all, he's here, in the inn."

"Mmm, sure…" Calla picked up the bristle-brush and gave herself a thoroughly enjoyable scrubbing. When she was dried and dressed and her hair was braided she felt hugely restored. Exhausted, yes, and hungry, but warm and clean did a lot for her mood. She and Shiriel walked down the stairs arm-in-arm to the dining room and bar. Sun poured in through the windows and at one of the large wooden tables sat a well-fed and cheery party, and at another sat two old men, veterans of the guard, one missing an eye and the other and arm, expressing their hearty approval of the dark ale they were drinking, and at a third sat a man with his back to the rest of the room. The whole place, sun-soaked and cheerful, was such a contrast to her surroundings from just a few hours ago that the memory of the cell and the prison drifted further from Calla's senses and began to feel distant and unreal. The innkeeper looked up as they entered.

"Breakfast?" he asked.

"Two," said Shiriel. "We'll be over there."

Shiriel led Calla over to the table where the young man was sitting by himself. He looked up at her and she gasped. It was the assistant, the merchant's assistant from the other day. He smiled lopsidedly as she and Shiriel sat down.

"Calla, this is Pador," said Shiriel. "Whom, I believe, you've already met." For a moment Calla just gaped in confusion, but then she pulled herself together.

"Yes, only I didn't get your name the other day. I'm pleased to meet you, Pador." This was the person who had helped her? But how...? Calla was much too tired to even try working it out. She looked from one to the other. "Now, please, I don't mean to be rude, but will one of you tell me what has happened before I lose my mind?"

Pador grinned again and fiddled a bit with the mug he was drinking from.

"Of course. Well, Let me start with how I got involved. I found out what was going on because of Himdir, the merchant I was working for, the one you bought the thread from. It was an accident, really. Early yesterday evening I had gone to look for some peace and quiet and a place to read, and settled in with my book in a corner of our storeroom. I'd made sure I was screened by some crates because I didn't really want to be bothered, when I heard Himdir come in and start stumping about. So I kept very quiet and waited for him to go away, when there was a knock. A woman came in whom I hadn't seen before. I was annoyed at first, but as soon as she started talking I forgot all about wanting to read.

"She asked him if he remembered a girl who had bought some white silk thread the day before, for whom he'd written a receipt. He said he did, and the woman asked if the girl had looked at anything else. Himdir told her about my showing you the gold thread and the woman said that she'd pay him twice its price if he'd give it to her, and twice again if he'd go to the authorities and say it had been stolen."

"But how could she possibly have so much money?" Calla gasped. Pador shrugged.

"I don't know. My guess is she's been stealing from her employers for a while. She seemed half frantic. I reckon this is the first time her... _activities _have been noticed by anyone and she was desperate to cover it up. Anyway, I remembered you from the day before, and this sounded like a frame-up if I ever heard one. Shortly after she paid him, the woman left, but Himdir hung around for nearly an hour afterwards. The stars were out by the time he left. I followed him through the streets to the guard station at the prison where he made his complaint. When he told the guards his name they woke up a bit and started asking him questions—whether he remembered a certain girl he'd sold something to the day before. They gave him your description and he said that sounded like the girl who'd been looking at the stolen thread so they brought him inside to make a statement, and I guessed that you had already been arrested." Pador stopped while a maid brought over breakfast for Shiriel and Calla. Calla was devouring it with her eyes before the plates were even on the table; big, thick slices of crusty bread and slabs of butter and sausages and fried eggs and a pitcher full of cold, fresh milk.

"I went a little ways away to think what I'd better do and wait for Himdir to come out of the station, and that's when—"

"He met _me_," Shiriel broke in. "I, of course, was practically driven to _distraction_ by then, since _nobody_ would tell me what was going on, and all I knew was that you'd been arrested and _dragged away_ to _prison_, and when I went there they told me that they couldn't _divulge_ anything to me at the moment and I would just have to _wait_. Well, I'm sure you know that I didn't take too kindly to _that_, so I started to throw a fit and cry and things, but then this awful man asked me (in a really _nasty_ tone of voice) if I wasn't your _partner_ and hadn't I better run along home before _I_ got accused of something too! So I told him off and said he ought to be _ashamed_ for trying to bully a girl, and he went away, but I _still_ couldn't get anyone to tell me anything. So I started home because I couldn't remember if I'd left the fire burning too hot and I didn't want the _house_ to burn down, but then, while I was walking, I ran into Pador and he asked me what was _wrong_.

"And when I told him, he said that he _knew_ you and was going to help, and that I should go home and wait there in case there was anything I could do. So _that_ cheered me up to know that someone was looking after you, so off I went—and the fire was fine, by the way, the house is still there—and I just couldn't stay still for a _minute_, and every second I kept running to the window to see if anyone was coming with news. So when Nadial came to the door I just practically leapt on her and nearly _drowned_ her with questions. She seemed so _sympathetic_ and _concerned_, but now of course I feel like I ought to have known. When she said maybe your account book would help clear things up I went into your room to get it and I suppose _that's_ when she put the things in the woodpile—"

"Wait a minute," Calla interrupted. "_Nadial_?" Shiriel looked at her, startled.

"Yes, Nadial, the seamstress. That is her name, isn't it?"

"Yes, but—but what about Chanda?"

"Chanda? No, darling, she had nothing to do with it, _Nadial_ was the one who changed the receipt, and the one who took the extra money, and when the bookkeeper, or the clerk, or _whatever_ he's called, made a fuss about the money, she's the one who gave them your name."

Calla's head spun. Nadial. Nadial had been going to put her in prison. The pleasant, effieciant Nadial who brought her lunch every day and praised her work. And to think that if Shiriel hadn't been there first thing this morning, she'd have pointed them at Chanda. Calla felt a pang of guilt. She shouldn't have been so quick to judge. Of course she'd thought of Chanda and not Nadial, she wanted Chanda to be guilty.

"Well," Pador's voice disrupted her thoughts. "After I sent Shiriel home I remembered that Bronad—Himdir's other assistant—had taken inventory just that morning. So I pegged it back to the storehouse and sorted through the books until I found the right one and slipped out again before Himdir got back. I saw him in the street on his way to the inn, so I knew I could go into the station.

"I'm sorry it took so long. It was hours before they'd let me see anyone who might listen. They took a good look at me, and I had a time explaining to them about my parents—I'll tell you some other time, long story short: my father was Gondorian and my mother from Near Harad—and convincing them that I wasn't an enemy or a spy. I expect you'd been locked up by then. I'm sorry." He reached across the table and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "Even after they let me speak to the captain, I was pressed to make him believe me. I'm afraid that being half-Haradrim isn't the best thing for my credibility. But whether he liked it or not (and he didn't), the books did all the talking in the end, and very early this morning, they brought Nadial in and asked me if this was the woman I'd overheard talking to Himdir. When I said she was, she sort of crumpled. And that was it. The whole thing started to come out. I excused myself and went out and grabbed a messenger to tell Shiriel you were about to be released and that I'd be waiting here. Himdir's been arrested, too." He stopped then, and returned his attention to the steaming black stuff he was drinking, watching Calla over the rim of his cup. Calla meditatively mopped up a bit of egg yolk with a crust of bread and looked up at him.

"Thank you," she said. "It seems inadequate after all you've taken on yourself, but really, thank you very much indeed." Pador shook his head.

"Not at all. It was nothing. There aren't many people who would have done what you did, you know, and I appreciate it very much. Helping you was the least I could do."

"I can still scarcely believe it. Nadial, of all people. She always seemd so, I don' know. Dependable, I suppose."

"Yes, well, I'd imagine she's been counting on that for a while. She must be a clever woman. Particularly if this is the first time she's had to cover up her actions. I mean, it was a good plan. If I hadn't chanced to choose that partiuclar spot to read my book, it would have worked. "

"I'm sorry about you losing your employer," Calla began, but Pador waved her concern away.

"I can't say I am, especially. I'd suspected he was a bit of a bastard, and I was right. And don't worry on my account. There's always a demand for someone who can trade in Harad. I'll pick my partner more carefully next time."

"Right," said Shiriel. "Well, now that everything's straightened out, Calla, why don't you have a nap here in your room while I go home and tidy things up a bit, and then, when things are back in order, I'll come and bring you home? You _can't_ have slept very well, and there's not much else for me to do, since everything's ready for the day after tomorrow, and I'll feel _much_ better to be doing something." Calla stifled a yawn and remembered that she hadn't slept for much, much too long. She got up from the table.

"Good idea. Pador, if you would, I'd be only too happy to have you come to dinner tonight."

"Oh! Yes, thank you, I'd love to." He looked surprised but quite pleased.

"Excellent. Six o'clock-ish?"

"Yes, yes, I'll see you later, then. Have a good rest."

"Thank you. And thank you again, for everything."

O

It was a pleasant evening. Calla, after her nap, had remembered that Legolas would probably be going to see her almost at that very moment. She'd sat down and wrote out an outline explaining the previous night's events and apologizing for once again missing him, sealed it up, and gone and found someone to deliver it for her.

Shiriel shooed her away from the fireplace with a wooden ladle and commandeered the kitchen, as Calla was (she claimed) obviously much too shaken still to be trusted around fires and boiling pots, and though Calla laughed at her and told her not to be silly, she was happy to sit and listen to her friend's wedding chatter. Things were just about ready when there was a knock at the door, and Calla opened it to a hooded figure. Pador, his face deep in the shadow of his hood, stepped in and took off his cloak. The girls' eyebrows rose in surprise. For the first time he wasn't wearing any make up, and he looked much better for it—healthier and more natural, and more like a young man.

And he turned out to be good company, too. He had traveled extensively in Harad and had a wealth of anecdotes to entertain them with. He showed them the streak of white in his hair that he'd got when he spent the whole night up a tree with a wild mumak raging about below him, and told them about the courts of the strange princes in Far Harad, and journeys on strange creatures made under a scorching sun. He inhaled his food, too, and when he saw Calla smiling, apologized for his atrocious manners. Calla laughed and told him not to mind. She hadn't had anyone in her house eat like that since her brother had died, and she had not realized how much she missed that peculiarly male attitude towards dinner. And after dinner Pador told jokes and flattered Shiriel about what a lovely bride she'd make until she turned pink, and stayed long enough to have a really pleasant chat and not long enough for them to wish he'd leave. And he asked permission to come again and Calla gladly gave it.

As Calla snuggled into bed that night with a smile, she reflected on the difference that twenty four hours could make, and how kind people could be found in the most unexpected places. Then she blew out her candle and went off to sleep.

O

As she climbed up the stairs to work the next morning with the pre-dawn light turning everything grey, she wondered when there would be someone to replace Nadial, and how she and Chanda were to proceed until then. Still, so far she'd needed little direction, so she had thought it best to get on with the work. She was feeling good. Not just because of the pleasant dinner last night, but becuase she was aware that she was doing well, getting right back to work even after going through an arrest and a night in prison. She opened the door and walked in.

And stopped short. Someone was sitting at her loom, and that someone was talking and laughing with Chanda. They looked up when Calla came in and fell silent. Calla looked at the strange woman and then at Chanda, who looked back with a snide and distant air.

"Who is this?" asked Calla. Her voice was low and there was a faint quaver in it. Chanda raised a cool eyebrow.

"Well it didn't seem very likely you'd be coming back, so I brought in a friend of mine to replace you."

Calla closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The comment was heartless enough, but there had been in her tone and in her face, something doubly offensive, something that looked like she knew she must be causing Calla pain and was rather amused by it. Calla looked at the stranger, who was eyeing her with a bored expression.

"Get out," Calla said in a strangled voice. "Just—just get out." Chanda and the girl looked at one another and rolled their eyes as if to say 'how tiresome' but the girl did stand up and gather her things together. Calla stood by the door, clenching her fists and shaking slightly.

"Oh, this was left for you," the girl said, thrusting a parcel toward Calla as she moved towards the door. Calla took whatever it was in her hands without really noticing. Chanda nodded goodbye to her friend and went back to work, ignoring Calla as though nothing had happened. Calla stared at her for a moment, opened her mouth to say something, closed it, and swept from the room. She walked briskly down the corridor until she judged she was out of Chanda's earshot and—at last—broke into furious tears. All the indignity and fear and injustice of the last day came rushing out of her in hot, body-shaking sobs. She pulled out her handkerchief and cried into it and wished and wished—and didn't care if it was mean-spirited—that that wretched hag Chanda _had _been the thief and that she were the one in jail now. Eventually she cried herself out, and blew her nose and dried her eyes. Only then did she remember the package under her arm.

It was wrapped in brown cloth and tied with string. She undid it curiously and the cloth fell away, revealing a beautifully bound set of books and a note. The note read:

_Calla,_

_I was very sorry to hear of your ordeal, and am glad that you have been exonerated. I hope that you are not too much shaken by what has happened and offer as consolation, poor though I fear it is, these books. They are by my own favorite poet. I hope that you will enjoy them—though if you don't I have no doubt that I will enjoy arguing with you. Best wishes._

_Yours,_

_Legolas_

Calla hugged the books and burst into tears again.

A/N: In a rush, and no time to check for errors, though I will do tomorrow. I just wanted to get this up first, though. Meanwhile, sorry for any and all mistakes and thank you for bearing with me. Also, major thanks again to one and all for the reviews—I'm glad people are enjoying the story so much!

Pador was drinking coffee. He's a bit addicted to it and brings it with him when he's traveling in the north.

Edit: Okay, I've fixed one or two little things that were bugging me. I'm afraid that this chapter feels kind of rushed, since I've been writing it in a hurry at odd moments. Work is really piling up, and this past week has been frantic. Hope the tone of the chapter didn't suffer too much. As ever, please review! And thanks for reading.

Another edit: And I've changed a few more things! Just tweaking things here and there. Also, thought I should let people know that I'm just changing my email address, and I'll be taking this opportunity to change my username, too. So, yeah. That's all: same story, same author, different name.


	9. Chapter 9

"I'm getting married! I'm getting married!" chanted Shiriel as she spun around the kitchen, her long hair, just washed, spraying droplets of water across the floor.

"Not if you don't sit down by the fire and dry your hair, you're not. Now take this comb and stop squirming or you are going to catch your death!"

"Calla, today no amount of scolding can subdue me, and do you know why? Because I'm getting _married_." Shiriel continued to grin madly, but she sat down and started untangling the knots in her hair. "And it's a beautiful, cloudless day, but then, this day would be beautiful if it were pouring buckets of hail, because do you know why? Because I'm _getting married_. And before you even ask, no, I won't have a single bite of breakfast. I couldn't eat a crumb. Probably I never will again. I have attained a state of happiness so transcendent, I doubt I'll ever have to worry about such a mundane thing as my stomach ever again, and can you guess why? It's because _I'm getting married_. To _Cadfael_. To_day_!" She practically sang the last word. Calla bit her lip to keep her smile in check; she was afraid it might split her face if she didn't. She went over and took the comb from Shiriel.

"I'll do that, Shiriel. You concentrate on not dying of happiness before you marry him. If I have to tell Cadfael that he can't marry you because you've keeled over dead in the middle of my kitchen, I am never going to forgive you."

She combed out Shiriel's long hair and was wringing it out with a piece of flannel when Tinidril, Shiriel's cousin, arrived with a wide, shallow basket full of early spring flowers under her arm—glory-of-the-snow and winter aconite, mostly, and some primroses—and she and Calla pulled up chairs behind Shiriel and sat to braid them into her hair.

"Shiriel, stop wriggling!"

"I'm not, _wriggling_, I'm—I'm—"

"—just trying to dance in your chair, yes, we can see that. Hold _still_!"

"The sooner your hair is done, the sooner you can be married," put in Tinidril. Shiriel let out a squeak and her smile was in danger of splitting her face, but she managed to sit straight without fidgeting until Calla and Tinidril pronounced her hair perfect. She shot up from her chair and faced them.

"My dress now, let me put on my dress!"

It was lying on Shiriel's bed, crisp and pressed and very simple—Calla couldn't help thinking of the heavy brocade and the tissue of silk up in the workroom—but Shiriel picked it up with something approaching reverence. Shiriel took it from her, smiling.

"Arms up. Let us slip it over you so that it doesn't mess up your hair."

Shiriel stood, humbly obedient, as Calla and Tinidril lifted the dress over her head and maneuvered her arms and head into the right holes and pulled it straight and settled it on her and stood back to look at the effect.

The effect took Calla's breath away. It wasn't that the dress, as a dress, was anything so very special. But the dress as Shiriel's wedding garment was something else altogether. Shiriel looked radiant. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were shining, and there was a (slightly nervous, slightly self-conscious) pride, suddenly, in the lift of her chin and the curve of her neck. It struck Calla—Calla, who was used to being the one with her head on her shoulders, her feet on the ground, and her eyes wide open—that Shiriel knew exactly what it was she was doing today, and that she was surer about it than Calla had been about anything in her life.

"Well?" she asked.

"Shiriel, you look… You're just the quintessential bride."

"Well? What do I do now? What comes next? I really believe I've lost the ability to think, so you'll have to do it for me."

"Next you put your shoes on. And then we go to your wedding feast."

"My wedding feast! Calla!"

"My sweet?

"Oh, Calla, I might, I really might just _die_ of joy before I ever get there."

"Shoes. Shoes Shiriel. And then we go to your aunt's house. And remember to breathe."

And somehow the three of them made it out into the street, shoes and all. Shiriel's giddiness was infectious and Calla began to feel as though she'd had a glass of wine or three already, but she was pretty sure that they were all walking without visibly reeling, and that was something. As the street they were on merged into a larger avenue, Tinidril's three younger sisters and her brother materialized out of nowhere and surged around them. The girls joined hands and walked behind Shiriel, singing.

**_Over the mountains_****_  
_****_And over the waves,_****_  
_****_Under the fountains_****_  
_****_And under the graves,_****_  
_****_Under floods that are deepest,_****_  
_****_Which Ulmo obey _****_  
_****_Over rocks which are the steepest,_****_  
_****_Love will find out the way._**

It was the only verse of the song that all of them knew, but they made up for the incompleteness of their knowledge by singing it over and over. On the third repetition Tinidril turned to scold them into silence, but Shiriel stopped her, laughing.

"Why shouldn't they sing?" she said. "I feel like singing, myself." She inserted herself into the middle of the line took the hands of the girls on each side and began singing merrily away. Tinidril looked at Calla for help, but Calla shrugged and joined in. They were drawing quite a lot of attention now, but Shiriel, dressed in white and wreathed in flowers and singing a love song, was so obviously a bride on her way to be married, and was clearly so gloriously happy that everyone shrugged or smiled or shook his head indulgently. And, really, what did it matter if people were staring? Calla didn't normally like causing scenes herself, but today if Shiriel was happy, she was happy.

And there could be no doubt, as she stepped through the gate into the courtyard of her aunt's house, that she was happy. If a cheer did not actually break out among the guests who were already there, then it did its very best. If she did not actually fly to Cadfael's side, then she did at least float there. And if the couple did not quite radiate a pool of light, then there smiles, at any rate, were certainly glowing.

Calla sat down at the table, which had been placed outside, about midway down, next to a rather stooping and excessively wrinkled old man who must, she thought, have been at least a great-great-uncle on one side or another. He was nearly bald, except for a few fine tufts of milkweed-silk hair that still clung valiantly, here and there, and is mouth was open in a body-shaking and completely toothless laugh. When at last he paused for breath Calla asked him what the joke was, which sent him into convultions. She eventually learned, however— as the relatives and friends came pouring in and sat down at the long benches— that there was no joke, but that the ancient man, not only had he lived to an age well beyond anyone's expectations, but also, very much to his own surprise, survived the War itself, and had therefore (and it occurred to Calla that his logic here wasn't the strongest, but then, the old man's glee was too charming for her to bother pointing it out) given up any attempt to be temperate in his happiness, and was getting into the habit of letting it carry him completely away.

To her other side sat one of Shiriel's aunts. Calla vaguely recalled Shiriel once mentioning something about wanting to avoid a talkative aunt, and as the feast progressed Calla became convinced that this was the aunt. She sat down to Calla's right, and without even bothering to introduce herself, she launched into a litany of criticism. Calla listened politely and wondered how anyone had the energy to nose out so many flaws. Everything, _everything_, was wrong, according to the aunt. The food, the drink, the guests, the groom, his family, the time of day, the time of week, the time of year, the tables, the benches, the decoration, the bride's dress, the rings (not that she'd seen them, but they were bound to be wrong), and as for the _impropriety_ of the whole thing, well—! A mere month's proper engagement! If they couldn't wait the standard year's time, it did look as though there must have been some indiscretion, didn't it, that they were anxious to get covered up—

The aunt, at last, paused, and looked with cold dissaproval at the old man to Calla's left. He was, once again, rocking back and forth with laughter, which the aunt had not noticed until he began hammering the table with his fist. The aunt looked at him with pointed disapproval which he didn't notice at all. He gulped a breath, grabbed Calla's wrist and leaned towards her conspiratorially.

"The old goat!" he said, forgetting (or was he, Calla wondered) to whisper. "The only reason she won't stop bleating is she thinks she should have been the one little Shiriel picked to join her to the soldier. She'd never admit it—not to a soul—not even herself—!" He broke off to laugh and pound the table a few more times.

Calla bit the insides of her cheeks to keep from laughing and glanced to her right. The aunt was turning an interesting shade of puce and fiercely pretending not to hear a word the old man was saying. He regained control of himself and patted Calla's hand.

"I like you, you don't yammer," he said, peering at her. "You can't be one of my relatives, can you?"

"No, sir, I don't think so," said Calla, smiling.

"Pity," he sighed, and patted her hand again.

The feast was very pleasant; the food was good, and there was more than enough to go around—several times over—and a second cousin on Cadfael's mother's side had a brother-in-law who was a wine merchant, so the drink was excellent, too. Calla could have wished that the aunt (or goat) hadn't sat down next to her, because constant, high, thin whine of disapproval was somewhat irksome. But the merriment of the party overall more or less drowned it out, and the almost delirious good-humour of the old man to her left turned out to be somewhat infectious, particularly after her second glass of wine. And then, at the head of the table, there was Shiriel and Cadfael, radiant and smiling and forgetting to eat or drink.

When everyone had had second or third helpings, and the conversation had fallen to a contented, post-prandial hum, Cadfael looked at Shiriel, who nodded, blushing, and they rose from their seats. Silence fell over the gathering as all eyes turned to where they stood. Cadfael's father and an older cousin of Shiriel's came forward and joined the couple's hands as Cadfael's grandfather spoke a blessing over them and made the invocation. Then, Shiriel quite breathless and Cadfael fumbling slightly in his excitement, they exchanged their rings. Their was a brief pause as they looked at one another's hands, almost incredulously, and then at one another. Then Cadfael leaned down and kissed Shiriel and a cheer went up.

Amid the clapping and the flurry as another round of drinks was poured for everyone, Shiriel, bright pink, buried her face in Cadfael's chest and let a few happy tears slide down her cheeks. Cadfael kissed her hair and looked about, grinning madly. Calla caught his eye and waved at him. He nodded at her, and then the first wave of relatives engulfed them in a flood of congratulations. Calla got up from the table and made her way towards them. She edged her way through the throng and eventually contrived to get hold of Shiriel's arm.

"Look, I won't bother you with lengthy felicitations now, but I'll run round later tonight—or rather—er—maybe it had better be tomorrow?"

Shiriel went from flushed to positively crimson and grinned and bit her lip. They dissolved into a fit of giggles and hugged tightly.

"I love you, Shiriel. You'll both be very, very happy."

O

Calla sat by the fireplace that evening and ground a bit of ash into the hearth with the toe of her shoe. The house was quiet again, now that Shiriel was gone, and Calla wished that she had something to occupy her mind. The whirlwind ordeal of her night in prison already felt astonishingly distant—she'd had time to have a good look at herself and had been pleased to find that, upsetting though the whole thing had been, it hadn't left her very deeply upset—but the consequences of it were rather more uncomfortably immediate.

She'd noticed, even in the midst of the wedding-feast, a few significant glances, a bit of whispering going on behind hands, some eyebrows being raised in her direction. She had expected there would be some gossip, and on the whole, she didn't care particularly. Things would probably die down soon, she told herself, and certainly by the time the King's wedding rolled around. No, what was bothering her, she decided, was the nagging wonder about what the rumors would do for business. Things had been going well. In fact, what with the word spreading about her current employment, business had been better and busier than she had ever hoped. Shiriel was still doing embroidery work for the general public and would continue to do so until her services were needed for Arwen's clothing. Shiriel had been able to raise her prices and she'd been having to turn people away. There was a whole list of new clients waiting for Calla as soon as her services were back on the market. And Calla, never having dealt with prestige before, could only wait apprehensively and see how it measured up to infamy.

Infamy. Calla made a face. She weighed the thing in her mind. Some people would drop her business. She was sure of that. But surely some would stay as well? Rumor couldn't be all that powerful, really, could it? How did one deal with rumor, anyway—laugh airily and hope that nobody could see the nervousness? Calla realized with annoyance that she had begun to chew her fingernails. She sighed and wished that it was later. She just wanted to go to bed and forget all about it. She considered having an early night, but wide-awake as she was, the prospect of lying in bed, staring at the ceiling with nothing to do but worry wasn't very appealing.

Calla shook her head with disgust. Why on earth was she being so moody? Her best friend had just got married, and, all right, yes, she was lonely, and certainly she missed her brother and her father and her friend, but did that mean the world held no delight for her? Of course not! She did just wonder what Shiriel was up to—

Her thoughts broke off and a noise like 'eep' as she realized just how the happy couple were probably occupying there time. She moved away from the fire to let her burning cheeks cool down.

The books! The books from Legolas! That was a perfect way to spend the evening. Rumor could go hang—at any rate, until morning—but she was going to unwrap those books, put her feet up on the table, and drift for a while between poetry and thoughts of Legolas. Her? Mope? Tonight she was the cat who got the cream. She pulled of her shoes and chucked them carelessly into a corner, when someone knocked sharply at the door. Puzzled, she went to open it.

"Oh! Pador!" she exclaimed. What was he doing here? And was she _blushing_? Calla hesitated for a moment, flustered, but then stood aside to let him in. "Er—won't you come in for a drink?"

A/N: Yes, I have actually written another chapter! And (get this) there are more to come. I do offer my sincere apologies for the delay. In addition to the workload, there have been some tough personal things going on in the last few months and I shoved this aside, but now, I promise, I'm back, and no more months-at-a-time diappearances. Also, I have another LotR fic brewing even now. I may post a first chapter/teaser sort of thing soon, but I don't think I'll start on it properly until Heart's Garden (I seriously need a better title) is drawing to a close.

The love song the children are singing is a verse from an old English love song (modified, of course) the lyrics of which can be found here: w w w . c o n t e m p l a t o r . c o m / e n g l a n d / l o v e f i n d . h t m l (delete spaces).

Congratulations to Quinn on her engagement!

And as ever, if you can find it in your hearts to forgive me for the long delay, comments, questions, critiques, and even the gnashing of teeth are much appreciated!


	10. Chapter 10

"So, he just—just showed up at night at your _door_?"

"You sound shocked, Shiriel. Did you think the Haradrim use the window?"

"That's not what I _mean_. I mean going to the house of an unmarried girl late at night. You don't think that shows a certain lack of _proper__feeling_?

It was two weeks after the wedding and Calla had had the happy couple over for dinner. Shiriel and Calla were in the kitchen doing the washing up and Cadfael was outside on the front step smoking a pipe. Calla had been waiting for his absence to tell her friend about Pador's surprise visit. Cadfael, she knew, was the sort of warm-hearted man who found it easy and agreeable to embrace his friends' friends as his own friends, and for his dearest's dearest he felt something like kinship. At any rate, he was protective of her in a brotherly way, and Calla suspected that if he heard the story he was likely to go storming off to find Pador and, at the very least, demand explanations at a volume that would a dozen soldiers running to see what was the matter.

She sighed as she scrubbed out a bowl.

"Perhaps, but not necessarily. It could just show a lack of proper training. We don't know how they do things in Harad."

"Well," sniffed Shiriel. "If young men behave like _that_ away down there, I'm not the least bit surprised that they're a bunch of evil-minded _barbarians_." Calla bit her lip and wondered whether she should even try to explain to her friend the horrendous fallacy in her reasoning. Shiriel saw her expression and misinterpreted it. "Not that I don't think _Pador's_ very nice. He is. And he's half-Gondorian, of course, so I expect he's all right, really. But go on, tell me what happened. You let him in?"

"Well, yes. I was too surprised to do anything else. He stepped inside and said he'd just come to see how I was and to ask me to offer you and Cadfael his congratulations. And then I don't know. Maybe it dawned on him that visiting girls at night isn't quite the done thing, because he got a bit awkward and shuffled a bit and said he didn't mean to intrude and he'd be off. And then he was." Calla leaned against the table and began to dry the dishes.

"How utterly _strange_. He didn't even sit down?"

"No, I offered him a chair, but that's when he sort of flushed and said he ought to be going."

"Well, you're probably right. The _poor_ boy has picked up a lot of nasty bad habits by spending time with those Haradrim. Calla, you _will_ tell him off, won't you, if he does it again? For his own good. I mean, _we_ know he's all right, but suppose he goes _barging_ into someone else's house at night?"

"You know, I doubt he makes a habit of it. I think he's just lonely. I don't think he knows many people, socially, here in Minas Tirith."

"Mm," said Shiriel, beginning to lose interest. "Yes, well, maybe we should all get together for another meal. Now. Calla. I want the _latest_."

"The latest…?"

"News about you and _you-know-who_, of course! So he gave you these books. And? Have you seen him since?"

"Well, no. I really haven't had any time. I've been run ragged at work these past couple of weeks. Nadial's replacement, a woman named Hwineth, is skilled but maddeningly disorganized. Of course, she's tried to ruin me fewer times, so I like her better but I have to admit, Nadial ran things more smoothly. Crises cling to Hwineth like mold to a bachelor's socks.

"Oh stop looking so disappointed." She grinned. "I may not have seen Legolas, but I have written to him. Not a note this time, either, but a long letter. I've been reading the books he gave me and I wrote him all my first impressions. And I, well, I teased him. I mean, actually he's right, and Ingannel's poetry is better than Mardil's. But I took the patriotic line, and—oh, pretended that Mardil was better on every point. I was being very absurd, and I'm sure he could see that I love Ingannel's poetry, but… I don't know. I just wanted to make him laugh. And I think I did, because he sent me a note teasing me back and saying that he'd would show me the error of my ways."

"Well let's _see_ it! Why didn't you say that earlier, do you _enjoy_ watching me suffer?"

"Shiriel!" Cadfael poked his head in through the door. "My dear, we ought to be going home. It's late."

"It is not late. You're just _restless_ because you've finished your pipe and you don't want to sit inside and listen to a couple of gossiping _girls_!"

"Too right," said Cadfael, grinning. "And while it may not be late now, I recognize that eager, giggly tone, and it means that if we stay another minute, we stay three hours. Am I right?"

"Shiriel, he is right," said Calla with a smile.

"_Calla_! My husband is clearly being oppressive, don't tell me you're against me, _too_?"

"More fool you, you married an observant man. Even if you have three hours to spend I have to be up early to get to work tomorrow."

Shiriel sighed a long-suffering sigh as Cadfael wrapped her up in a shawl.

"I don't really _need_ this, you know," she fussed. "Not on the first really warm night of the year."

"Yes, well, I don't really _need_ my socks pressed," said Cadfael as he ushered her out into the street.

Smiling, Calla bade the happily bickering couple farewell.

O

Calla sat serenely at her loom the following morning.

Since the advent of Hwineth and her wake of chaos, she had begun to feel that for the first time her work was giving her more anxiety than pleasure. Between that, Chanda's persistent unfriendliness, and the rumors that had dogged her since her brief incarceration, she had been begun to feel, in the mornings, the first faint stirrings of resentment. She had tried scolding herself about it—how many girls in the city would give their limbs for a job like this?—but to no avail. She had been determined, however, to rid herself of this sourness. She had always taken pride and pleasure in her craft and she was a mumak's uncle if she was going to let a few unpleasant circumstances take that away from her.

So she had set about rediscovering the pleasure weaving had always given her. First, she arrived extra-early in the morning, just a few minutes, to ensure herself time to check the warp threads and go over what she had accomplished in the previous days, and to just sit and look at her loom. She found it helpful if she thought of it as her teammate, not just her tool. Then she took a few minutes to think of all the things that were bothering her and to let them go. And when she began weaving, she took care to think of the people she loved, and, with each pass of the shuttle to think of how she could continue to weave them more fully into her life.

The results were wonderful. She enjoyed weaving again. She could go on and on for hours, sunk in pleasant reverie, without getting tired or impatient. She was sure the quality of the work itself was better. She could be pleasant to Chanda and shrug off her unpleasantness. And Hwineth declared that she was a marvelously calming influence.

Calla took some deep breaths and went through her new morning routine. She smiled and Chanda when she walked in and worked rhythmically away as the sun climbed higher in the sky. Now and then Hwineth gusted in with little calamities eddying around her and Calla helped her sort them out. Lunch came and went and the afternoon wore on peacefully. Hwineth ran out of problems and settled down. The sun sank and the room darkened. Chanda got up and left for the night and sometime later so did Hwineth. Calla smiled goodbye and them. Alone, she began to say under her breath some of the things she was saying in her head. Now and then she hummed a snatch of song.

At last the room became too dark for her to go on and Calla reluctantly stopped and stretched and rubbed her neck. She probably ought not to work quite so late, at least not without a candle, or she'd risk making a mistake she'd have to unravel in the morning. The stars must be coming out by now. She looked over at the window and let out a sharp gasp.

Smiling, Legolas got up from his seat on the windowsill.

"My lord! I didn't notice you come in!"

"No, I gathered not," he said drawing nearer. Calla felt her heart give a dreadful lurch. "Forgive me. I should have said something. But you were so happily absorbed I did not want to interrupt you."

"No, no, my fault. I stay late, you see, because I enjoy being able to work alone since I…" She trailed off and felt herself go pink, remembering that she had been muttering aloud for the past half hour. Silently, she rejoiced that she'd been thinking about her brother that whole time and not about _him_. In the dim light she saw his smile widen.

"And may I ask about what you were mumbling?"

"Oh, um, yes…" She might as well tell him, but nothing in the world could make her look at him while she did it. She busied herself tidying up her loom. "Well, what with one thing and another, I'd begun to feel a bit disagreeable and started griping about my work. And then I thought what a shame that was, because, you see, I've always really loved weaving. So in order to help myself enjoy it again, I—I started a sort of a game. When I'm weaving, I concentrate on the people I love and I think about… about how I can weave them more tightly into my life." She said the last part very quickly. Her cheeks were on _fire_. For a moment she blessed the darkness, then remembered that Elves could see well in the dark and cursed her luck. "I know all that sounds very childish."

She couldn't really fiddle with her loom any longer without making herself absurd. Calla braced herself and turned to look at him. He was still smiling, but it wasn't at all a mocking smile. Or even—were the darkness and her hopes fooling her? Let them!—an indulgent one.

"On the contrary," he said softly. Then his eyes filled with mirth. "In fact I'd willing to take full responsibility for this early maturity of mind. I am pleased to see that keeping company with Elves is having such a positive effect on you."

"Keeping company! My lord, I hardly see how you can claim the credit when I have not had the wholesome influence of your company in more than a month."

"Oh, I didn't want you to be overwhelmed. I thought I'd give you the first dose or two of tonic and then leave you to absorb them, but it seems I underestimated my patient's constitution."

"Well your patient hopes you'll increase the dosage. After all, you have still not told me everything about the Ents. And I have a scrillion things to say about Ingannel, if you can stand to hear them all."

"Oh yes," he grinned. "I haven't yet told you off for your unpardonable letter. You badly need to be educated about real poetry. Here, come outside so we can be under the sky."

"All right." They went out together and sat down on a low wall. He was less than an arm's length away from her and even in the darkness she could see every detail of his face. It occurred to her that she was going to miss what he said because she'd spend every ounce of her mind on memorizing the way the starlight looked on his skin. She was trying to decide whether she would his forehead or his chin by heart first when he started to talk about Ingannel. He recounted everything—how and when he had first run across the poems in his father's house when he was still quite young, and how the poetry of an Elf who had served Finrod Felagund and then Orodreth faithfully though not illustriously and eventually fallen in the defence of Nargothrond had inspired him. How in his homeland's darkest hours he had thought about the life of that long-ago poet and taken a sort of comfort.

"But this is all just background. Some time ago, after I had not read his poems for a long while, I picked them up again. When I first read them I knew comparatively little of poetry. I was moved by them then, by their power and beauty, and by the beauty of the life of the Elf who had written them. But when I reread them, with more knowledge and years of reading behind me, the beauty of the mechanics struck me as it never had before."

"Yes," said Calla happily. "The beauty and the innovation. I've never read anything like them at all. The brevity of each poem surprised me at first, but then I paid closer attention—and it's exquisite!"

"Each word perfect—exact, succinct and beautiful."

"Not a foot that doesn't enhance the meaning of its line."

"His _Third Lament_!"

"The _Love Song of Nargothrond_!"

"The _Song of Grandeur and Weakness_!"

"I haven't read that one yet."

"Ah! Infuriating girl! Go back to your house immediately and read it!"

"Actually…" Calla glanced up at the night sky and shivered. The stars had swung across the sky and she realized that some of her lightheadedness was to do with her hunger and not the Elf beside her. She stood up. Her limbs were surprisingly stiff. Just how long had they been sitting out here? "I ought to go. I have another busy day tomorrow." She wasn't sure but she thought she might have just seen a flicker of regret cross his face. But then again, it could have been the poor light.

"We'll continue this some other time, then. Let me know when you have read all the poems."

"I will"

"Have I, I hope, rid you of your silly notion that Ingannel is Mardil's inferior in composition?"

"Oh." Calla smiled playfully. "He's pretty good, I suppose. But you forget one of Mardil's greatest merits, my lord." Legolas raised an eyebrow inquisitively. Calla drew herself up. "Mardil was a man of Gondor." She turned as if to stalk away, but then laughed at herself, turned and waved.

"Goodnight!" she called, and ran down the steps.

"Good night!" came his voice from up above her.

She floated through the streets as though walking on clouds and when she reached her house she affronted the stray cat on her doorstep by swinging it into her arms and burying her face in its neck. The cat, though offended, did not resist. After all, Calla had got into the habit of giving him a bowl of milk at dinner time.

A/N: All right. I lied. It was many months between updates. And then I updated with a not-very-long chapter. Anyone who is still reading this story may begin throwing stones and rotten vegetable matter at me. My only excuse is that life does unexpected things to you, like eat up all your time. This time I'm not going to make any promises about my update schedule, except that it really will be as soon as I can manage it. I am not abandoning this story. I will write it to the very end. I enjoy doing it and I hope that there may still be some people out there who enjoy reading it. To all you blessed, wonderful people who have reviewed, you have my thanks. If you've read this far... leave me another review? This chapter, like so many before it, is un-beta'ed. Feel free to beat me over the head with misspelt words and shove me through plotholes.

Also, it has come to my attention that the title of this fic is terrible and no longer even fits with where the story was originally going to go. I will be changing it in the near future.

Also again, as with Mardil, there is no poet Ingannel (unless by freakish coincidence). As far as I know, I made him up, so you won't find him in LotR canon.


	11. Chapter 11

Calla did not like early spring showers. They were better than wintry rain and sleet, of course, and probably farmers found them valuable but she was not an enthusiast. She found that winter's cold had a nasty way of creeping into the rain and clinging there long after it had vanished from the air. She reflected on this unhappily as she stood up from her loom and stretched her sore back. A steady, dismal rain had been falling for the three days since she had last seen Legolas. The gutters were like little rivers and the streets were so wet that every time she went out her skirt got soaked nearly to the knees. She sighed as she wrapped her cloak around her and put on the hood. Well, at least she was going straight to Shiriel's this evening. That meant there would be a fire waiting for her.

She stepped out into the drizzle with hunched shoulders and hurried along, slipping on wet cobbles. As she hurried through the streets her mind turned to Pador. Calla had been enthusiastic about having him come to dinner again and Shiriel, albeit somewhat reluctantly, had agreed. Meeting Pador had got her thinking about Harad in a new and uncomfortable way. In that little aside he'd thrown out that day in the inn, he'd said his mother was from Near Harad. She felt stupid admitting it to herself, but somehow Calla had never imagined that Harad was the sort of place that had people's mothers in it. Her father and brother hadn't been in the habit of talking shop, but when she dredged up the memories of the times they had mentioned the Haradrim, they'd scarcely sounded any different than when they spoke about orcs.

But the Haradrim weren't orcs, they were Men. It sounded absurdly obvious when put like that but Calla found that she'd never actually made the distinction before. She had certainly never thought of Haradric children and families, Haradric women, but Pador's mother was one. Did she miss her son when he was gone? Did she delight in making a big meal for her boy when he came home? Calla shivered as a drop of rain found its way down the back of her neck. Did they sing lullabies to their baby boys? And when those baby boys grew up and went away to kill the men to the north, did they lie awake at night and pray for their return? Calla's chin trembled and she blinked back tears. _They_ attacked _us_, she told herself. _They_ attacked _us_. She gritted her teeth and tried to shove away the nasty little voice that wanted to know why that made it okay for her to have thought of them as less than human.

It was a relief to reach Shiriel's door.

"Calla! Come in. Here, you give me _that_ and go sit over there by the fire." Calla was dragged inside and bustled out of her wet cloak. "Just give the pot an occasional stir, would you? Pador won't be here for another half hour or so, and dinner's _nearly_ ready. Tell me about your day. How are things going?"

"Oh, much as usual, really," said Calla, standing by the fire and rotating slowly to dry herself out. "Work's coming along quite well, all things considered. I think Hwineth's settling into her role a bit. She's having fewer crises, at least. In fact we'll probably be ready for you in a day or two. And Chanda's… Oh, she's just being her usual charming self."

"_Why_ in the world _is_ she so unpleasant?"

"I don't know," Calla said with a shrug. Steam began to rise from the hem of her skirt. "I think possibly she's just very ambitious, and being extra-unfriendly is her way of weeding out some of the competition. She's certainly latched on to the story of my being arrested. I'm sure that the only reason she has her friend stop by for lunch is so they can whisper loudly about how shocking it is for Chanda to have to work with someone so notorious." Calla picked up the ladle in the pot and stirred the stew meditatively.

"Un_fath_omable," said Shiriel. "How can life be pleasant when you spend all your spare energy finding ways to dislike people? I just do_ not_ understand." Calla sighed.

"Oh, well. I'm learning to ignore it. It would probably bother me more if I thought that that sort of rumor was going to have a bigger effect on our business, but commission requests have only slowed down slightly since my little scandal. And I we're getting requests from higher-end clients than we ever used to. But enough. Let's talk about something other than work and Chanda. Where's Cadfael?"

"Oh, he's…" Shiriel turned away and began cutting thick slices of bread. "He's on duty tonight."

"He is? But I thought— Oh." Calla's mouth hardened into a thin little line. "I see."

Shiriel nodded. The little bit of her face that Calla could see was red to the temples. Calla stared hard at the stew and poked at lumps of meat with the ladle.

"Calla, I couldn't _not_ tell him. I _couldn't_ have just said, 'Oh, we're having that nice boy who saved Calla from prison round to dinner' and then opened the door and let a _Haradric_ boy come walking in."

"_Half_ Haradric."

"Calla, I _know_. And I _told_ Cadfael, but… Calla, what could I do?" Shiriel had stopped slicing bread and was twisting her hands anxiously. Calla glared at the stew and rubbed her forehead, trying to will away the mounting feeling of antagonism.

"Nothing, Shiriel. Shiriel, I'm not angry with you for telling Cadfael about Pador's parentage. You were right, it wouldn't have been right to spring that on him in his own house. I'm just—I 'm just upset on Pador's behalf. I'm upset that Cadfael took it that way." She put down the ladle and

"But Calla, try to see things from _his_ point of view. Cadfael had friends who _died_ on the Pelennor Fields and the Haradrim were _there_, fighting against us."

"And no one I know, no one I cared about was killed in this war, is that it?" said Calla icily. Shiriel went pale.

"Oh, Calla, that's not—I didn't—" she stammered, but Calla didn't want to listen. Her face felt flushed and there was a hard knot of anger in her chest.

"Pador wasn't at the Pelennor. Pador had nothing to do with that. He is a half-Gondorian merchant who risked his own safety to save me from ruin and disgrace." Her voice was rising now. Part of her mind whispered that she was being unfair to Shiriel and Calla, uneasily suspicious that it was in the right, plunged deeper into her sudden anger to escape it. "So excuse me if I seem a little upset, but I somehow find it distressing that the man who defended me is coming to dinner in a house where his host can't stand the thought of being under the same roof with him!"

"Calla!" Shiriel looked as if she were about to cry. "I _know_, all right? Cadfael just doesn't see it that way. _Please_ don't be angry. _Please_ calm down." She gulped. "I like Pador _too_! Calla, _please_ don't be mad and let's just the three of us have a nice dinner. Please?" Tears welled up in her eyes and began to spill down her cheeks.

"Oh, honestly, stop _crying_!" snapped Calla.

"Well then don't—don't _force_ this sort of thing on me!" Shiriel sobbed, her nose going blotchily red. "You _know_ I cry when people start yelling, you _know_ I can't help it!"

"I—" Calla broke off, defeated, her anger utterly undone by the sight of Shiriel's comically, pathetically contorted face. "I'm sorry. You're right, I do know better, I am sorry."

"That's," hiccupped Shiriel, "that's all right." She sniffed, wiping her nose and eyes dry, and took a shuddering breath. "Come on, Pador will be here soon. Let's try to have a pleasant evening."

Calla nodded

A few minutes later, as Calla was setting the table, there was a quick knock at the door and Shiriel ushered in a damp but smiling Pador.

"Pador, come in, come in!" she chattered. "And dry off by the fire. Here, let me take your cloak, we're _so_ glad that you could make it. You brought me what? Oh, how perfectly _sweet_! Calla, _look_! Pador's brought me this lovely mixing bowl as a wedding present. Here, let me just set it down over here." She bustled about, and Calla hoped that Pador could not see that her constant movement was covering her discomfort, or hear that, even for Shiriel, she was speaking a little too quickly. "My husband—we're so sorry—couldn't be here at the last minute, he had to go and take guard duty, so it's just the three of us, but I'm sure you'll meet him some other time," Shiriel rattled on.

Calla studied Pador's face. Was there some flicker there of tension? Did he guess or know? His eyes flicked to her and he caught her staring. Calla blushed slightly and he smiled widely at her.

"How's business?" she asked hurriedly.

"Oh, rather non-existant just now," he said as they sat down. "I haven't got a new business associate yet. Actually I've be thinking about it and this might a chance for me to change my way of working."

"Oh? How do you mean?"

"Well, the way I've worked in the past is to team up with someone—someone respectable," he said, coloring slightly. Calla winced internally. 'Respectable' meant 'not suspiciously dark-skinned', of course. "Then I'd load up with things from Gondor and head down to Harad and spend, oh, maybe six months or so doing a tidy business on my own. When I had all the Haradric wares I could carry, I'd bring them back north to Gondor and meet my partner. We'd spend some time pricing everything and then head for a large town or a city—I don't always work in Minas Tirith. When we got there, I'd pose as my partner's assistant. It's easier, that way, not to draw too much attention to yourself. And when everything was sold, we'd repeat the whole thing. And I'd change partners now and then."

"But you want to change your approach now?"

"Well…" Pador hesitated. "For a few years now I've been thinking it might be nice to try a less nomadic life. To settle down, in fact. Start a family." There was silence for a beat. It flashed through Calla's mind that Pador would have a tough time finding himself a Gondorian bride, and she felt that Pador and Shiriel must be thinking the same thing, but before the silence could become too awkward, Pador went on. "The sight of my hostess tonight only encourages me in this ambition," he said with an odd, courteous little half-bow towards Shiriel.

"Oh!" said Shiriel, going a little pink. "I…?" She trailed off, not entirely sure what to say.

"Madame, marriage becomes you." Said Pador, smiling. "When we last met, what was loveliest to see was your devotion to your friend, it showed stronger even than your distress for her. Tonight, though, in your own home, at your own table, you are positively radiant. You make me hope one day to have a house of my own, similarly adorned."

"Oh, um, thank you… How kind of you to…" Shiriel faltered, blushing fiercely. Cadfael complimented her, Calla knew, but not in nearly such honeyed words. Calla cleared her throat and hunted about for something to say, when Pador laughed guiltily.

"Sorry," he said, sounding rather less formal all of a sudden. "That sort of speech isn't very Gondorian, is it? I forget sometimes, make these very flowery compliments to people here and embarrass them, or the other way around. Offend people in Harad by being what they think of as downright insulting—but people here would just call it straightforward or frank. I didn't mean to discomfit you," he said to Shiriel. "Your house is lovely and I really do hope you're as happy as indeed you look."

"Oh," said Shiriel, giving a relieved little laugh. "That's all right, Pador. My, what _nice_ compliments girls in Harad must get!"

"Yes," said Calla. "So Pador, is it very difficult switching between cultures so frequently?"

"Oh, sometimes," Pador said. "For instance, there was this one time in Far Harad, I had gone straight there by caravan after leaving Gondor. I'd scarcely spoken to anyone on the way so I hadn't really readjusted myself to Haradric speech, and I was tired from the long journey and began to fall ill. The caravan came to a halt one evening in a small town, scarcely more than village, and I decide to stop there until the next one comes through to recover my health. So I'm setting myself up for a stay in this tiny inn, and everyone's very excited to have me there because traders are a bit of an event in such a pokey place. Well, they badger me within an inch of my life while I'm trying to eat dinner, so afterward I haul out a few of the things I've brought from Gondor—not the really good stuff, but just trinkets, that sort of thing.

"Now, the innkeeper has a daughter, and she falls in love with this bracelet of carved wooden beads that I've got out. Understand, now, wood is actually something of a luxury in Far Harad. There aren't many forests there, and trees are few and far between. Anyway, she's going on an on about how much she loves it, showing it to her mother and father, saying how she can't stand to give it back to me, and meanwhile my head is splitting and I just want to go to bed. So I give it to her—they could never have afforded it—and right away she's more or less convulsing with joy."

"That was sweet of you to do," said Shiriel.

"A little too sweet," said Pador, grinning. "In Gondor, a tired merchant may give a girl a bracelet to buy himself some peace, but in Far Harad, such a gift was paramount to a proposal of marriage. You should have seen her mother."

"Oh, Pador!" Calla laughed behind her hand. "How on earth did you ever get out of it?"

"Ha! I didn't even realize I was in it for a day or two," he said, his smile widening. "I was nearly delirious with fever for the next little while—"

"You poor thing!" broke in Shiriel.

"Oh, I have a pretty strong constitution. And the innkeeper's wife mothered me back to health in the best fashion, because, naturally, after my extravagant demonstration of favor she was expecting me to marry her daughter and secure a comfortable old age for my in-laws. The first morning that was lucid again the daughter brought me coffee, beaming, and was—was rather friendly. And, uh, I realized exactly what I'd done and all the implications. I must have looked pretty sick, because she ran for her mother, sure I was about to faint.

"I felt a swine. I spent three days recovering there under my sudden betrothed's ministrations. I couldn't simply sneak out and leave her in the lurch, of course, when I'd given the poor child every reason to believe I wanted to marry her. And I couldn't bring myself to tell the girl that she'd made a bad mistake. Looking back I cut a rather comical figure but it was a ghastly situation at the time."

"Well? And how did you escape?"

"I didn't have to, in the end. Her brother came home from some long journey he'd been on, took one look at me, decided I wasn't from a suitable tribe, blacked my eye, and chucked me out."

"Oh, Pador!" both girls gasped. He shrugged cheerfully.

"Well, it might have been worse. And I found it didn't hurt nearly so much when I realized that it had saved me from settling down in a Far Harad backwater. If it hadn't been for that black eye I'd probably be buried there yet, dandling my third or fourth baby on my knee. But to make, too late, a long story short: Yes, there are some difficulties when you're trying to switch back and forth between two such different places.

"But that's enough—entirely too much, probably—about me. Tell me about the weaving and embroidery business."

"Oh, there's not much to tell, I'm afraid," Calla sighed. "Certainly nothing exciting, barring the odd frame-up and night spent in prison. I weave, Shiriel embroiders, we both enjoy it. That's about it, really. They are wonderful crafts, and we're both very happy, but I'm afraid it doesn't really lend itself to anecdote very well."

"No, I'd love to hear about it. You can't think how starved I am for news of day-to-day life here in Minas Tirith."

"_I_, for one, know exactly what you mean," said Shiriel. "Just think, Calla. All that time that there simply was no daily life here in the city—all war and doom and evacuations—I feel like there's really nothing in the _world_ I want to think about more than, oh, knotted threads and leaky cauldrons and bed linen and what not, which reminds me, my dear, that I must do _some_thing about the coverlet that great-aunt Borniveth gave to us. It's just _lovely_, only it has a great tear along one of the seams that needs sewing up rather badly, and it's wearing a bit _thin_ in some places…"

Shiriel rambled happily into a list of small, cozy domestic difficulties. Calla hmm-ed and um-ed appropriately when her friend paused for breath, but offered no advice. Shiriel didn't need it. Certainly Calla could manage a house well enough, since she had done it for her father and brother for so many years, but she couldn't relish doing it the way Shiriel could. She glanced at Pador now and then, but never caught his eye. To her surprise, he seemed really delighted and interested by everything Shiriel had to say, and kept gratifying her by asking little questions about the details of her household worries. Calla wondered, at first, whether his interest was in earnest—could someone who had traveled so extensively among strange tribes, and been stranded in trees by mumakil and who knew what else really mind about these sorts of things?—then marveled when she decided it was, then felt a sort of tender pity for him.

He, of course, had no mother or sister or wife to pester him about taking his boots of when he came into the house. The sorts of things that made up Shiriel's world were all but alien to him and, Calla felt sure by the look on his face, they were things he wanted very much. She wondered whether they were possible for him. Was there a single girl in Gondor who would marry a man who looked like an ancestral enemy? And he was rather pathetically delighted by dinner. Calla wondered how often anyone cooked for him. Though they chatted cheerfully through the evening he made no mention of his mother or any other Haradric relatives.

Still, he seemed to have no complaints about his life. He was always happy to break out one of the stories from his travels or describe to them the desert that lay far to the south and east and the strange Men and beasts that lived there, clustered around small pockets of water or roaming across the endless sand.

After dinner, as Shiriel was clearing away the dishes from the table, he asked shyly whether the girls would like some music and went and got a strange instrument from the pocket of his cloak. It was carved from bone, with a reed mouthpiece and eight holes along the body.

"It's called a _duduk_," said Pador, and held it to his lips. Gently, a low, slow, sweet melody filled the room. The instrument had a warm, mournful sound, hollow and haunting. Calla leaned back in her chair, gazing sleepily into the fire, her mind drifting along with the wavering music. Shiriel came and sat beside her, resting her head on Calla's shoulder, and Pador's dark eyes half-closed. The girls sat quietly for some time with their arms around each other, lost in thought, listening to Pador play. Calla watched him idly, thinking what long fingers and lashes he had.

All at once he glanced up at her with a smile flashing in his brown eyes, the music changed, and the contemplative mood was broken. Pador played a few bars of something quick and rhythmic and then stopped.

"There ought to be someone else playing counterpoint, really," he said, fiddling with the mouthpiece cover. "But it's good company when you're traveling alone. Helps keep the night from feeling quite so vast and empty, and, er…" He trailed off and looked down at the strange instrument.

"Pador, that was truly beautiful," said Calla. "Thank you. I've never heard anything quite like it."

"I'm glad you liked it," Pador mumbled, ducking his head a little. "It's, ah, _duduk_ music is one of my favorite things, one of my very fav… I'm glad you liked it."

"It's certainly very powerful," Calla said. "It was a lovely tune, but it's made me feel like I could sleep for a hundred years. I had probably best be getting home. There are a lot of long days ahead of me if we're to finish in time for the wedding."

"Allow me to walk you home," said Pador, getting up. "It's dark tonight."

"Oh! Thank you, yes." They put on their cloaks and thanked Shiriel for dinner. Pador opened the door and stepped out. The rain had cleared and the clouds were scudding across the sky, ribbons of stars breaking through here and there.

"I'll be right there, Pador, I just have to ask Shiriel something," said Calla. Pador nodded and shut the door. Calla turned to Shiriel.

"Sweet, I'm sorry I was so foul earlier. Forgive me?"

"Calla! Of _course_! Dearest, of course, I understand, Pador is really the nicest boy, even if he _is_ the tiniest bit odd, and I'm grateful to him too for what he did for you, and of _course_ I want Cadfael to like him too. You won't be angry at Cadfael for not being here, will you? I really think, considering how he feels, it was for the best that he decided not to stay tonight, or there might have been a _scene_ or something, and even if not, dinner would have been all war and politics and _tense_, and there wouldn't have been any lovely music. So it's best, really, after all, isn't it?" She looked anxiously at Calla.

"Of course, Shiriel," said Calla, but all the same there was a prickle of irritation at the back of her mind again. Irritation at Cadfael? She wasn't quite sure it was that, so she smiled to hide it and kissed Shiriel good night.

Out on the street she and Pador walked for a minute or two in silence, until Pador, with a little twisted half-smile at his feet, said:

"My host, I take it, was only informed this evening of my pedigree?" It wasn't really a question and Calla made no answer. Her cheeks burned hot and she bit her lip.

"I'm so sorry, Pador," she said at last, not looking at him. "It's…I…" But she couldn't really think of anything to say. His arm brushed her as he shrugged.

"Don't worry too much about it. This is hardly uncommon."

"I just wish things were—were otherwise," Calla whispered. She was having difficulty finding her voice.

"Well, so do I, to be honest." Calla felt a warm hand on her shoulder and she stopped and looked up at him. There was frustration in his face, and resignation, but humor as well. "Calla, I think of myself as a Gondorian, but I look like one of the Haradrim. I _do_," he insisted, cutting her objection short. "And those two people have been at war for a long, long time. It is my hope, my dear hope, now that our King has been restored that that can change. But I have no illusions. Even if it happens, it will not happen quickly. And in the meantime…" Pador held up his hands helplessly. "I have no bitterness towards Cadfael or the other who feel like he does. The Haradrim have been the enemy for a long time and so I look like an enemy."

"It ought not to be like that," said Calla.

"Perhaps one day it won't be."

"Perhaps." She turned away from him and walked on. Clear and uncomfortable in her mind was the memory of herself sitting in the chair before the captain trying to decide whether or not to try saving herself by turning in the Haradric infiltrator she had spotted in the market place, and Calla burned with shame. They did not speak again until they reached her door, when she turned to say good night.

"Cheer up," said Pador. "That you feel some one else's troubles is a credit to you. And if there are people like you in Gondor, then I needn't give up hoping that I'll be able to walk openly here one day."

This was nearly too much for Calla. She choked out a good night and went in.

"Oh, dear," she said aloud to the empty house. She thought for a moment, then lit a candle and pulled out a pen and ink and some paper and sat down to write.

_My good lord,_ she began, and then threw down her pen. Did she really want to write this to him? She would probably look foolish at best, and she might only end up convincing him that she was small-hearted, small-minded, and mean. Well, yes, that was a risk, one that turned her stomach to ice, in fact. But she needed help, advice from someone wiser than herself, and her father and brother were not there to ask.

"And until I get this sorted out I will never have peace," she told the guttering candle flame. She picked her pen up again and bent over the paper. She wrote steadily for some time, frowning seriously, then signed and sealed the letter without so much as glancing it over. _Lord Legolas_, she wrote on the outside. She left the letter on the table with a sigh of relief, fell into bed and blew out the candle.

She really was exhausted. For the few minutes before she sank into sleep half-dreamed visions swam before her eyes. An everlasting ocean of gold stretched across her mind, where strange creatures with high-humped backs and serene faces loped along in single file beneath strange southern stars. Only, of course, there was no sand, but a long golden braid of hair and the brightness wasn't from stars, it was the brightness of a pair of clear, light eyes…

In her sleep, Calla smiled into her pillow.

A/N: See? Not dead. I am, however, incredibly sorry for how bad I'm being at updates. Allow me to reiterate what I said last time: I _will_ finish this story, it _is_ still on my mind, I am _not_ going to abandon it. To anyone who still has the patience to read this, please understand, I have, this summer, finished my final exams, graduated from university, traveled around (without access to the Internet for quite some time), taken a summer job, finished said job, and I'm preparing to head off to grad school next week. All this on top of a certain amount of personal stuff. So please, bear with me.

A duduk is a traditional Armenian wind instrument. They are actually made of wood, but there are ancient examples of them being made out of other materials, including bone.

I will be changing the title of this story to something I feel more appropriate, probably "We Live Not for Ourselves", and, at some point, I will be altering the non-Tolkien-esque characters' names to sound more Gondorian. This include's Calla's name. When I do this, I will include, for several chapters, a guide to the changed names. I will also try to make the new names sound relatively like the old ones.

Finally, those of you still reading this should direct your thanks to AnnieG163 for giving me a much-needed jumpstart.

Finally finally, thank you, as always, for reading, and please do review/scold/leave concrit as you see fit!


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